Tonight marks Deftones’ second London gig in as many years, but the appetite is clearly still there — the arena is quickly filling up well before the first support slot begins. Bittersweet anticipation hangs thick inside The O2 Arena. Deftones are wrapping up their UK tour in support of their tenth studio album ‘Private Music’, and with the band notoriously guarded about what comes next, tonight carries a quiet weight. Of course, there’s plenty of bands who’ve returned from silence with something that justifies the wait, but tonight is it for Deftones in terms of this run of UK dates. It adds a gravity to our excitement, a laser focus on drinking in every second of this — losing ourselves in Chino Moreno’s howl and Stephen Carpenter’s riffs, alongside a few thousand other people, who understand exactly what this band means.
The night starts with Drug Church, whose blend of punky, post-hardcore-y, alt rock-y goodness shows they’re determined to earn their place on this bill. Frontman Patrick Kindlon has already declared to every crowd on this run that it’s the opening band’s job to set the tone, and set it they do. ‘Fun’s Over’ hits the O2’s cavernous space with a force that has no right to feel this intimate, and ‘Weed Pin’ sends the first wave of bodies over the barricade. Kindlon holds court between songs with the cadence of a man who has been given a pulpit and is absolutely going to use it. Drug Church give us neither the headliner’s sensuality nor the main support’s anarchic energy, but what they bring instead is something pricklier and more relentless. ‘Myopic’ and ‘Grubby’ deliver in ways that feel both urgent and oddly wise, and by the time they’re done, several thousand people who arrived as strangers to Drug Church are leaving as converts.
Denzel Curry takes to the stage wearing a balaclava-like snood and barely stops moving for the entirety of his set. Frankly, it’s a masterclass in how to occupy an arena stage as a solo rapper. The crowd naturally divides into two separate, invisible groups: Group A, ‘who the f*ck is this’, and Group B, ‘he’s an odd choice to support Deftones, but I’m having a fantastic time’. ’RICKY’ hits like a thunderclap and ‘GOATED’ follows with rhymes and confidence that match the song’s self-billing. DJ Poshtronaut adds crucial texture beside him as the pair bounce off each other in ways that keep the crowd perpetually on their toes. Curry’s ability to hold a crowd that’s ostensibly here for alt-metal is remarkable in and of itself, but a shout-out to Rage Against The Machine’s Zack De La Rocha before an absolutely scorching cover of ‘Bulls on Parade’ settles the question of whether he belongs on this bill (he does). Next, Deftones. Here we go!
‘Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)’ opens with the kind of slow-burn grandeur that renders the O2’s size irrelevant. Suddenly, this is the most intimate room in London, and Chino Moreno’s voice is doing things to the atmosphere that the projections and light rigs can only dream of. Speaking of which: the visuals form a striking backdrop of short looping clips that cycle behind the band, pulsing and breathing with the music. It is in fact so striking, it’s hard to look away, making it surprisingly easy to forget the people on stage creating all this noise, forcing the crowd to periodically correct the subject of their attention.
Chino is a man of remarkably few words, with “welcome”, ”thank you” and “you feeling good over there?”, being about the limit. The Deftones live experience offers an almost cult-like quality, a sense that the music is the sermon and additional commentary would only dilute it. ‘locked club’ and ‘Rocket Skates’ keep the temperature climbing, and ‘Diamond Eyes’ sends the first properly delirious surge through the crowd. The newer ‘Private Music’ cuts sit comfortably alongside the catalogue, as ‘ecdysis’ unfurls with that familiar gauzy menace, and ‘infinite source’ holds its own in a setlist that includes ‘Digital Bath’ and ‘Change (In the House of Flies)’ — no small feat.
Then, mid-intro to ‘my mind is a mountain’, Chino stops. Something’s happened in the crowd that appears to be a medical emergency. Chino handles it with quiet authority, waiting it out, watching, and only when the situation is resolved does the band ease back in. It briefly strips the theatre away from a gig and reminds you that these things happen in rooms full of people. They recover without missing a step. ‘Sextape’ drifts past like a fever dream, ‘Genesis’ rattles the chest cavity, and ‘milk of the madonna’ – bleeding into a ‘souvenir’ outro – feels like being slowly lowered into warm water, closing the main set with a kind of aching grace that leaves the room briefly speechless.
There’s something lovely happening tonight, as teenagers who’ve clearly arrived via TikTok’s recent and apparently insatiable appetite for Deftones stand beside the parents who’ve been listening to ‘Around the Fur’ since 1997. When ‘Cherry Waves’ opens the encore, the volume from the floor gets suspiciously, magnificently louder, and you can tell exactly which songs those newer fans came for. Nobody begrudges them for it. Mostly. ‘7 Words’ ends it all with the fury the night earned. Moreno screams, Carpenter’s guitar does something prehistoric to the air, and then it’s over. They walk off and leave the lights to do the talking. It’s more than enough.
Deftones return to the UK to headline All Points East presents Outbreak in August, and if tonight is anything to go by, whoever’s lucky enough to be in that field better be ready.
KATHRYN EDWARDS
Photo: Clemente Ruiz