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In Tool’s discography, the line “I know the pieces fit” serves as a desperate mantra in “Schism” — a 2002 song based on a relationship’s demise.

Seventeen years later, “I know the pieces fit” also can be interpreted as a victory cry for the rock band. New Tool album “Fear Inoculum” strengthens and reinforces what’s come before, a rare late-career project that adds to a musical legacy instead of harming it.

“Late career” may be an unfair assumption. Tool headlined Bankers Life Fieldhouse Saturday, and group members Maynard James Keenan, Adam Jones, Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor appear to be in their prime.

Specific praise is reserved for guitarist Jones, drummer Carey and bass player Chancellor, three musicians of jaw-dropping virtuosity. This power trio made nearly every song a festival of tension, but not necessarily release.

The Tool mystique rises from Carey’s polymetric beats and Chancellor’s repetitive figures that resemble a choked-off signal from some far-off space station. The world-beating rhythm section is augmented by Jones’ hypnotic riffs and Keenan’s skeptical worldview.

All Tool elements were present in “Fear Inoculum’s” lengthy title track, which opened the show with an intensity akin to Led Zeppelin greeting an audience with “Stairway to Heaven” or Metallica opening with “One.”

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Bankers Life Fieldhouse (initially known as Conseco Fieldhouse), which debuted as a concert venue with a Bruce Springsteen show on Nov. 10, 1999. Tool’s no-camera policy, including cellphone use, brought a throwback feeling to Saturday’s event.

Keenan relaxed the camera policy on the last song of the program, allowing fans to document a sliver of the night’s epic entertainment that began with industrial-music pioneer Killing Joke. 

Check out three ways Tool reached a peak in Indianapolis:

1. Maynard’s mannerisms

Vocalist Keenan talked little during the show, but he twice said “In-diana” in a resigned sing-song cadence. Sporting a liberty-spikes mohawk, leather jacket and red plaid pants, Keenan displayed greater enthusiasm when singing oldies “Ænima” and “Vicarious.”

Sticking to his tradition of avoiding the spotlight, Keenan mostly alternated between two platforms at the back of the stage. Eccentricity could be one interpretation for this habit, but it’s also possible Keenan views himself as secondary to Jones, Carey and Chancellor. At the show’s conclusion, Keenan congratulated each of his band mates and exited — not in a James Brown showman’s sense, but seemingly to let the instrumentalists drink in the crowd’s adoration.

2. Seeing things

Any musician can visit Bankers Life Fieldhouse and wear a Pacers jersey. Carey earns bonus points for his full uniform of blue-and-gold jersey (No. 1) and shorts. In other visuals, a semi-transparent metal curtain in front of the band dominated segments of the show. The concept of separating performers from audience borrowed a page from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” and the curtain doubled as a projector screen. Among images shown on the main video screen, the creepiest may have been an eyeball creature that emerged from the back of a bug during a rendition of “Vicarious.”

3. Embracing ‘Fear’

Perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid to the “Fear Inoculum” album is Tool’s ability to deliver a fantastic show without performing the recording’s best song, “7empest.” Beyond the title track and Carey showcase “Chocolate Chip Trip,” Saturday’s show included “Fear” highlights “Pneuma,” “Descending” and “Invincible.” Prog-rock muscle carried “Pneuma,” and “Descending” offered commentary on humanity being on the ropes. “Falling isn’t flying,” Keenan sang. And “Invincible” may be the ultimate theme song for Tool, a band that’s made five studio albums across 26 years: The tune stopped, started again and never gave up.

Saturday’s set list

1. “Fear Inoculum”

2. “Ænima”

3. “Parabol” > “Parabola”

4. “Pneuma”

5. “Schism”

6. “Jambi”

7. “Vicarious”

8. “Descending”

9. “Forty Six & 2”

Intermission

10. “Chocolate Chip Trip”

11. “Invincible”

12. “Stinkfist”

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Call IndyStar reporter David Lindquist at 317-444-6404. Follow him on Twitter: @317Lindquist.

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