Since the literal beginning of their 30-year career, Tool have been putting on utterly stellar live performances. While the alt-metal weirdos have been dominating arenas for the majority of their career, their first-ever show went down at a humble spot in L.A. called the Club with No Name, and fan-shot footage from the absolutely feral performance is up on YouTube for all of us to enjoy.
The gig is dated October 7th, 1991, by the video's uploader, who also claims that Anthony Kiedis and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers were hanging side-stage, and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello was in the crowd — which is entirely possible given the time period and location, but sounds almost too magical to be true. Nevertheless, the real alchemy of the night was coming from the freaky new band onstage, who rocked out like wild maniacs to a crowd of people who had no idea what they were witnessing.
Naturally, Maynard James Keenan is shirtless and donning his classic shaggy mohawk while he lurches from side to side like an old wizard hermit from a fantasy movie, and his bandmates play with the noisy fury that defined the band's confrontational early material. In a quick 14 minutes, they banged through "Hush," "Sweat," "Part of Me" and "Cold and Ugly" from the Opiate EP they'd release in 1992, as well as "Sober" from their 1993 debut, Undertow
It's a helluva historical document to behold, and you can watch it all go down above. Below, see Keenan reflect on his personal journey as a fan and musician — covering Tool, APC and Puscifer — on Revolver's "Fan First" podcast.
