Live And In The Flesh
Deftones - March 3, 2013
Only nine days after our experience with Bosnian Rainbows in Montréal, we were headed back to the city for some more live music! The Deftones were out on tour in support of Koi No Yokan, their latest album that had dropped late 2012. The only other time that I had been lucky enough to see the band live was when they were one of the opening acts on Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour in '03 at the Skydome in Toronto. That show is a story for another day! A decade later and we're catching them headlining a show down at one of my favourite Montréal venues, Métropolis.
The show landed on a Sunday night which was nice. This gave us plenty of time to casually make our way into the city and not have to worry about rushing at all. The few hours it took us to get there seemed to go by in a breeze while we all caught up over some classic Deftones. We had grown up listening to these guys so we had plenty of memories surrounding their music and the good times we shared. The weather wasn't too bad, but it was certainly cold enough while we waited out in line for the doors to open up. They never seem to open up quickly enough in those circumstances.
Security finally began to let everyone in and we weren't long making our way up to the balcony to try to get one of the best views in the house. We were only a few rows back from the edge, left of center stage. The elevated layout ensured we wouldn't be competing with anyone to see the show, and the table edge for drinks was simply an added bonus. By the time the opener hit the stage, the trays of drinks were flowing steady throughout the crowd so you didn't even have to leave your area. Métropolis knows how to get things done. The Contortionist were brought along on this tour for the supporting act. They were decent enough and helped get us warmed up in no time. We were ready for some Deftones!
Seeing as how it had been ten years since the last time that I had seen them live, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. It didn't take me long to realize that these guys still had it after all of those years. As soon as the Deftones took the stage they fired things up with four Around the Fur tracks; Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away), Headup, My Own Summer (Shove It), and the title track from the album. We were loving every second of it so far. It instantly took us back to all of those summer days in high school. Next up was their four track segment from Diamond Eyes, their sixth studio album from 2010. Sextape, Diamond Eyes, Rocket Skates and You've Seen the Butcher were all hitting pretty hard. I hadn't spent much time with Diamond Eyes myself, so I wasn't too familiar with them at the time, but they blended in quite well with the rest of their set. Feiticeira and Digital Bath, two tracks from White Pony that I wasn't expecting to hear marked the midway point of their set.
They seemed to be sticking with not mixing up albums by playing several songs from each at once. Koi No Yokan was tied in next, and their latest material really lent itself well to the live setting. I was happy to see that they were up there giving it all they could and still sounding great. The Deftones wouldn't be able to leave without showcasing some of their debut 1995 album, Adrenaline. Engine No. 9, Nosebleed and 7 Words finished off their regular set for the night. We weren't sure if they had planned on coming out and following that up with an encore, but they did! Two more tracks from White Pony wrapped their twenty song setlist up. Change (In the House of Flies), and Passenger, one of my all time favourite Deftones tracks. I never thought I would ever get the opportunity to see that live. Even without Maynard James Keenan there, it was still incredible. We collected ourselves after being blown away and headed back out to hit the road and back home after our short visit into the city, listening to the Deftones the entire way.
It was great to finally catch this band as a headliner once and for all! The only other time we had tickets to one of their headlining gigs, was their cancelled Ottawa gig back in November of 2000 (due to Chino's vocal chords being shot). The apparent upside to this was that the band (without Chino) did decide to meet every single fan waiting in line that night. Too bad I had won backstage passes to the show and we would have already met them all! Looking back at it, I'm grateful to have at least had the opportunity to share a few words with Deftones' bassist Chi Cheng, and even touch his crazy dreads! In 2008, Chi was involved in a serious car crash in California. Chi remained in a semi-comatose state until dying of cardiac arrest April 13, 2013, the day before my birthday, one month after this show in Montréal. He was, and always will be a key part of the Deftones, and what I've always loved about them.