It might be hard to believe for those outside the fold, but if you were of a certain age and persuasion in the mid-to-late Nineties, it’s likely that Los Angeles four-piece Tool shook you to the core. Case in point: At the impressionable age of 18 I saw Tool play a slot on the fast-dying Lollapalooza festival. Overall, save a rousing hip-hop paradise courtesy of Lost Boyz, the concert was a disappointment, featuring a more fun than transcendent set by Snoop Dogg and other boring riff-raff.

Then Maynard James Keenan took the stage in full drag and his band nut-busted into Ænima’s 'Stinkfist'. Not to mythologize, but it was a big fucking deal. I was transfixed, as was the crowd and especially the guy that climbed a light tower, shouting obscentities and generally looking like someone who didn’t know what to do with all the energy in the air. Even from the grassy nosebleed section of the stadium, every note, every utterance, every rhythm came through pure and perfect, even the fifteen psychedelic minutes of epic droner 'Third Eye'.

I still rate it as my most treasured of concert experiences, and I’ve seen Radiohead play their triple-encore free-for-all; I was privvy to a Portishead concert right before the unit broke up; I caught the boner-causing Bauhaus reunion, and still nothing stands up to Tool in ’97. Since then, the quartet have turned in what I would call less motivated performances. At Ozzfest ’98 they looked bored, a gorgeous cover of 'No Quarter' their only saving grace. On a tour in 2002 Tricky almost stole their thunder, Tool’s oblong Lateralus compositions feeling more like prog-rock drum clinics than songs.

Now, in 2006, it seems like ages since Tool hit their peak. 10,000 Days, far from mediocre, didn’t deliver the righteous spark we’ve come to expect from The Commercial Metal Band That Matters. Suffice to say, my expectations for their August 27 concert at The Gorge in George, Washington, weren’t sky-high. Was I wrong to anticipate a solid, if unspectacular, performance? Yes and no.

Launching into action on the heels of 'Stinkfist' just as they had nearly ten years earlier, Tool sounded somewhat revitalized, turning the five-minute former radio single into a lengthy jam at its receding mid-section. Keenan, donning a strange hick get-up that included chaps and a cowboy hat, has distanced himself from the herky-jerky, man-possessed thrusts and twitches that used to whip crowds into a white-hot frenzy, but his voice is more powerful than ever, soaring over the crowd like a hanglider and dipping into the cavernous Columbia River canyon behind the Gorge stage. What’s more, you can understand his every word, and the occasional yells — unlike the scream-soaked presence of most metal bands — accent his repertoire rather than dominate it.

His band hasn’t changed a bit. Danny Carey still puts on an ode to percussive academia, plunking his sticks down on seemingly seven drums at once while sitting relatively still and high on his drum riser. Adam Jones, as always, represented prog-metal’s most valuable statue, stately but motionless, but his understated guitar work is a key component, as he allows his rhythm section the necessary room to stretch, ascend, and eventually attack like Hitchcock’s swooping birds of prey. Bassist Justin Chancellor? He continues to be the driving force behind Tool. While Carey paradiddles and flip-flaps around on his toms like Rachmaninov effortlessly tinkling on piano keys, Chancellor provides both a rhythmic and melodic foundation that each member feeds off of greedily.

On this night his precocity stood out most on 'Schism' and '46 and 2', both of which are built on and around his slithering bass leads. Perhaps not coincidentally, these songs, along with aforementioned 'Stinkfist', were the highlight of the evening. That is, until the opening riff of 'Ænima' crackled and crumpled up any resistance I might have had. Their rendition of the track this evening was simple and determined and exactly how it is found on the album, and it closed the evening with a resplendent flourish. 'Ænima' flaunted every element of the Tool mantra. The trash-compactor crunch of its intro is only the beginning; from there, onlookers were treated to a bass-driven verse worthy of mid ’70s Rush, a bullheaded chorus, a polyrhythmic crescenso, a soulful, expressive breakdown and, finally, a triumphant finale with virtuostic pummeling from Carey and primal grunts from Keenan.

Another unexpected boon was a gripping, measured version of old fan favorite 'Opiate' an uncharacteristically one-note half-treatise that, in the light of a wave of religious fanaticism in the US, rings uncomfortably close to home. Waving lyrics like “Jesus Christ why don’t you come save my life / Open my eyes, blind me with your lies” in front of the crowd like a rebel flag, Keenan raised the somewhat rote song to another level altogether, taking on the appearance of a reverse-sermonizer more than a typical rich American musician that has 'made it'.

Tool are not quite the bewilderingly powerful force they were in earlier years, when they were younger and perhaps hungrier for the unknown, but the foursome still carry the chops and determination to render other like-minded acts laughable. Most encouragingly, they are still refining their attack and exploring new ideas, albeit to a lesser extent. Rather than soiling the sparkle of my old memories, on this night they added yet another chapter to memoirs that will hopefully continue to gain new entries as the years pass and this reporter reluctantly surges toward advanced adulthood.