What could be more embarrassing than headlining your own festival, only to be subsequently (and very publicly) derided by your fans? Well, how about those same fans – led by one of whom is a lawyer – pursuing refunds and willing to see the band in court.
That’s the grim reality that Tool are dealing with post-Tool In The Sand, the event which they masterminded and headlined and where their choice of setlist turned out to be their undoing.
With a captive audience of Tool’s most loyal fans paying thousands in order to travel to the Dominican Republic and witness them play two gigs on successive nights, the band chose to double up on some fan favourites, playing four songs on both the first and second night… And thus set in motion a cavalcade of pain that’s only getting worse.
Holiday from hell
Tool’s festival was to have been a fan-pleasing, three-day luxury event taking place in an exotic location with guests enjoying all-you-can-eat-and-drink packages at Punta Cana’s Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Royalton Resort, while enjoying gigs from Primus, Mastodon, Coheed and Cambria and – of course – Tool themselves, who promised to play “two unique sets” on consecutive nights.
Their Friday 7 March show was, by all accounts, a winner, with the band playing ten songs, including fan favourites Schism, Stinkfist and Vicarious.
But on Saturday the 8th, the band’s nine-song set included four songs that they’d played the night before – Fear Inoculum, Jambi, Pneuma and Rosetta Stoned – and rather than their setlist going down as the band simply wanting to belt out some more classics, the entire affair has been scrutinised by an increasingly vocal body of protestants, who reckon that hearing their favourite song twice is tantamount to mental abuse and theft.
Video footage posted online clearly shows fans booing and screaming 'f___ you’ as a measure of their disappointment and even before the second gig wrapped, the complaints on social media began to pile up:
“So much for the ‘two unique sets’ we were promised,” wrote one. “The whole reason I did this was to see two different sets and be able to walk back to the [hotel] room,” wrote another.
“And they quit 30 minutes early tonight. If you hated Tool fans, this is what you would do,” summed up a third.
Indeed, in the face of an unhappy audience Tool seemingly left the stage on the second night without playing their final song, Vicarious – a song which they had played the night before… – which fans spotted written on the band's on-stage paper setlists.
However, of all the comments it’s perhaps: “I think it’s more than f_____ up; I think it’s a breach of contract and they owe us a refund for tonight” that has turned out to be the most prescient, becoming the main thrust of a legal case that the band are now being forced to take seriously.
Hell hath no fury like a Tool fan scorned.
While the act of playing two not exactly dissimilar gigs on consecutive nights to fans effectively trapped in the desert and unable to vote with their feet may, at best, be questionable, it appears that – sure enough – the small matter of the small print has given one fastidious and legally-skilled Tool fan sufficient leverage open a pandora’s box of legal whoop-ass against them.
The bone of contention comes via the group’s original billing that their Tool In The Desert event would consist of “two unique sets” and now legal professional and (we assume ex?) Tool fan Stas Rusek is asking fans to get in touch and join his case.
Speaking to Metal Hammer, Rusek – of the legal firm of Stasio French Rusek, LLC, based in Augusta, USA – said: "These were my 27th and 28th Tool shows. There was a palpable sense of betrayal in the air as the show began the second night, and it lingered throughout the remainder of the weekend.
"What it boils down to is that purchasers of the festival package were promised 'two unique sets' by Tool… The reality is that the opportunity to see Tool play two unique sets, i.e. no repeats, was the determining factor for most attendees to pull the trigger on spending thousands of dollars to attend."
And while Rusek does appreciate the complexities of two truly unique sets ("We know that, due to the spectacular and complex nature of their show, most songs will be repeated”) he nevertheless appears to have the band and management over a legal barrel. (“However, this is not what festival attendees were promised”).
Ruske describes himself as "a huge Tool fan, but also a festival attendee who feels your pain and seeks justice for all of those ripped off by a classic bait and switch" and is promising fans they'll pay no fee unless they win the suit.
It remains to be seen how many Tool fans are willing to pile on in the pursuit of a refund, but with the wording and offer there in black and white, it looks like the band may have a problem relying on their own fans’ goodwill.
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