It took Tool 13 years to release a new album and only a week to knock Taylor Swift off the top of the Billboard charts.

No, fans of this prog-metal mainstay don't flock to a clever a nickname (Toolies probably wouldn't work, anyway) or collect copies of hand-written journals from its frontman. But, they're nonetheless as faithful as any musical fandom, waving the Tool flag proudly through label disputes, cryptic teases, elaborate album packages and online battles (sounds familiar, eh?).

And these fans continued the headbanging tradition of Los Angeles' eccentric groove act Wednesday night at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

Tool performed in downtown Nashville days after earning the band's third-career Grammy Award — Best Metal Performance for "7empest" — and months before returning to co-headline the annual Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester.

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The two-hour, 14-song set paid due to "Fear Inoculum," the album 13 years in the making that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 sales chart. Tool took stage to the 10-minute title track, offering three more visits to the album's psychedelia progressions before the show's close.

"Rumor has it ... Nashville?" frontman Maynard James Keenan said, sardonically testing the audience. "Mmmm. Sounds more like Louisville. Work on it."

Keenan and the band — guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor and drummer Danny Carey (donning a No. 8 Los Angeles Lakers jersey, the number worn by Kobe Bryant, who unexpectedly died last weekend) — wouldn't waste time talking, instead offering dialed-in riffs and otherworldly visuals.

Tool worked about half the set from from behind a transparent curtain that offered another layer of visuals for onlookers to feast — steely characters and sharp colors that pulled from the band's iconography and shifted with each unorthodox time signature.

Keenan split his time between a pair of platforms adjacent to Carey's drum riser. He'd shift back-and-forth behind center stage, where Jones and Chancellor played.

The band enforced a strict no-phone policy, pushing concertgoers to experience the show, including its unexpected moments, in real-time. And Nashville got a taste of the unexpected when Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulker joined the band on stage for a ripping solo during extended 2006 cut "Jambi."

And Tool gave its new material worthy attention, but didn't dwell on it.

With fist-pumping approval, it's clear music like 1993's "Swamp Song" and 1996 cut "Ænema" — aggressively situated between experimental metal and art rock — continues to fuel a fandom that burns decades after Tool debuted.

The band continued a dig through its discography Wednesday night, offering melodic industrialism with 2006's "The Pot," sonic overload with 2001's "Schism" and fist-pumping satisfaction from onlookers with band standard "Forty Six & 2."

Keenan even let onlookers pull out a camera for the night's final song, "Stinkfist."

"You guys were great and you're allowed to take out your stupid phones and film the rest of the s***," he said. "You're welcome."

Tool Nashville setlist