TOOL hosted their own festival last the weekend in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and the second night did not go over so well. The band headlined two nights of the "TOOL Live in the Sand" festival, with other bands like Primus, Mastodon, Coheed and Cambria, and Eagles of Death Metal also on the bill. The first night appeared to be well-received; however, fans were not happy with the second set because of its length and the band repeating songs after promising two unique sets.

A Reddit user who was at the festival filmed fans booing the band, and even cursing and flipping the bird, near the end of their set on Saturday night (March 8). Now, fans are considering filing a class action lawsuit.

Lawyer Stas Rusek was one of the disgruntled fans who traveled for the festival and is gathering signatures for potential legal action. He told Vulture that around 100 people have expressed interest, and he expects “a few dozen more [attendees to sign up for the lawsuit] per day for the next few weeks.”

Rusek also issued a statement to Metal Hammer, writing:

The potential lawsuit against the promoters of Tool in the Sand is indeed being investigated. We have had lots of interest from Tool fans who attended the festival, a category which I personally fall into. 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. While the comments on these posts argue about what ‘unique’ means, 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. Most Tool fans, like me, have attended multiple shows on the same tour, and we know that, due to the spectacular and complex nature of their show, most songs will be repeated. However, this is not what festival attendees were promised.

TOOL's second set ended up including four songs from the first night. Although there were repeats, it'll be hard to legally argue that the set wasn't unique. TOOL is currently on tour in Mexico before embarking on their first-ever South America tour later this month.

Greg Kretschmar