What Was Maynard Doing Behind The Drums At The Quad Cities Tool Show?
Maynard James Keenan, Danny Carey, and Adam Jones have been making music and touring for 30 years. Justin Chancellor has been with Tool for 25 years. After all this time the band could be bored on the road and just go through the motions. Or, they could find ways to keep it fun for themselves and in turn, for the fans. They choose the latter.
In 2020 Tool set off on their "Fear Inoculum" tour. They performed their last live show in Portland, Oregon on March 11, 2020, before everything stopped. MJK would test positive for COVID twice during the shutdown and some thought, would they come back and finish what they started. That question would be a resounding yes. Rescheduling all the dates that were initially on the tour and adding more along the way.
The second leg of the "Fear Illoculum" tour would start nearly two years later on January 10 in the same state it paused. At the Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Oregon.
Since then, the band has been going hard on the road across the country performing to sold-out crowds and playing for over two hours each night. While this could wear on the band, MJK has found one way to keep it light in the middle of the show.
During one of the longer instrumental sessions, in this case, during "Descending" Maynard leaves his perch next to Danny's drumset and "disappears" behind him. The band then posts on their Instagram and/or Facebook what MJK was up to. He's been playing Jenga. Playing Operation. Or in the case of the Quad Cities, well, you can see below it was a literal dick joke.
Thank you MJK for using a tool, at a Tool show, right here in the Quad Cities.