Live Report: Deftones put on a powerful show at 3Arena

Deftones delivered a spectacular show to a sold out 3Arena Monday night.

The Grammy-winning California metal band, tonight performing in support of their latest album private music, were formed in Sacramento in the late 1980s, when the band members were still teenagers, and have since gone on to become pioneers of alt-metal. Their experimental sound and fantasy-based lyrics have gone on to garner a wide fanbase that spans generations; as is on display at their show. Young and old alike are at the show, wearing their Deftones merchandise. People have come with their friends, their families, their parents, their children, all to hear Deftones play.

There’s a raised platform in the center of the stage. On one side of the platform, there’s a keyboard setup, and on the other side, a drum kit. The center of the platform is dominated by stairs leading down to the stage itself, where two microphones are set up on either side. The stage itself is lit from high above by a row of pale blue lights, as the stage crew bustle around setting up in advance of the band.

The only other light comes from a row of brilliant yellow lights above the stage that shine out from behind metal rafters and illuminate the whole room. Around the whole arena, smoke machines send smoke up to the ceiling high above, where it gathers into clouds, and as the beams of light poke through these clouds of smoke, the whole thing looks almost heavenly, if heaven had hundreds of gigantic black speakers.

Down below, thousands of people are standing, talking, milling about. In the seating above the central standing area, people are finding their seats, eating popcorn. The bars that are located around the arena are doing a roaring trade. People are trying to find one another in the sea of people, laughing together, comparing their Deftones merch. Mostly, though, people are just looking up at the stage, expectant, waiting for the reason they’ve all come here tonight.

Then there’s a blackout. The crowd cheers. Out of the darkness, the opening guitar of ‘Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)’ comes echoing through the arena. Already, it’s deafening. The audience is screaming, whistling. Then pale green lights come up onstage, and we can see the band. In the seats, people stand to greet them. Frontman Chino Moreno walks out onto the center of the platform, and a spotlight hits him as he holds the microphone above his head. He walks down the stairs until he’s center stage. Then the drums hit like an explosion, and the show has begun.

Immediately, you can feel the music in your chest. The whole building is pulsing with it. The lights are flashing, strobing, multicolored. Behind the band, a screen shows various images; people screaming, lava, glass shattering, a giant wave about to crash over the whole show. The whole standing section is jumping up and down, hands in the air. The band attacks their way through ‘Locked Club’ and ‘Rocket Skates’. The opening bass line of ‘Diamond Eyes’ seems to vibrate the whole stage. As ‘Diamond Eyes’ fades out, Moreno thanks the crowd, and says one word: “Welcome.”

They’re just getting started.

As they make their way through ‘Rosemary’, ‘Infinite Source’, and ‘Sextape’, the crowd gets more and more into it, making their enthusiasm for each new song known, loudly. The guitars, with sometimes melodic rock runs, sometimes angry-sounding chords, sometimes ethereal pared-back notes, and sometimes pop-esque strumming, are always powerful. You can feel the impact of every hit of the drums, feel the report of it in your spine. Moreno runs around the stage, racing up and down the stairs, leaping up on a speaker at the edge of the stage, bending double over the microphone and screaming.

In the crowd, fans are moshing, crowd surfing. (Security guards are trying in vain to stop the latter activity, which - come on. Trying to enforce the rules and stop people having fun at a metal concert? Doesn’t that go against the genre?)

‘Change (In The House Of Flies) has the band framed in front of an image of a rising sun. As they sing, with the audience screaming along, “I watched you change!”, you think to yourself that surely this must be the climax of the show, surely there’s nowhere left to go from here, no way to top this. But no, there’s more, they keep going, adding to the burning, shrieking ecstasy of the night.

Finally, Moreno says, “This one’s for you, Dublin!”, and they launch into ‘My Own Summer (Shove It)’. Everyone in the seating section is on their feet, and the standing section is basically one big mosh pit. Lights are flashing, vocals echoing and screaming. The guitars are shrieking, grating, burning through songs. You can feel your heart pounding - or is that just the drums? Does it matter? It feels like the end of a fireworks show, where they just send up everything they’ve got left, and you can only watch, wide eyed, feeling the unrelenting rhythm of those explosions as they light up the sky.

They finish out the show, and Moreno thanks the audience. The bassist and guitarists throw picks into the crowd. The lights come up in the room, revealing the popcorn and crushed plastic beer cups littered around the floor. The audience leaves the arena, ears numb, filing out and going their separate ways. It feels like falling back to earth, like some spell has been broken. For an hour and a half, we were all completely under the power of Deftones.