photo credit: weworemasks

Deftones have remained one of my favorite bands since I was in middle school. It was then that I discovered the furious Around the Fur, which ultimately led to White Pony – which changed my entire outlook on the boundaries of heavy music and how limitless it was. Since White Pony, the band that’s 2 years younger than me (that’s 24 for you math wizards) has released four great and strangely consistent albums, including the most recent, Koi No Yokan, which came out earlier this week on November 13th. The Texas stint of their current tour were the first dates after the release, so it was to be expected that the band’s set would lean heavily towards it, but that wasn’t the case.

[Note: Sorry for the weak photos. My main squeeze Sunbear wasn’t in attendance. Oh and there was no photo pit, either!]

Hit the jump for the review.

-grizzly


photo credit: weworemasks

Remember, this show was in San Antonio. As a Houston native, a 3 hour trek was involved in the attending of this show, but it was a small slight. I’d come to find out that the Sunken Gardens Amphitheater has a curfew of 10:00 p.m. sharp, so my 8:00 p.m. arrival was cutting it a bit too close, as the Deftones had already hit the stage, leaving me to hear the first couple of songs from the will call line. System of a Down offshoot Scars on Broadway opened, and while I’m sure played a fine set, was an afterthought before even stepping into the venue. Let’s get this out of the way: the Sunken Gardens Amphitheater is beautiful. With the right weather, it’s an excellent mid-sized venue for bigger bands to perform at. It’s a smaller version of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, except that it boasts a large standing room – much like your ACL festivals and what not.

An enthusiastic and bright-spirited Chino Moreno and the rest of the Deftones kicked off into high gear with two standouts from 2010’s Diamond Eyes, including the title track and “Rocket Skates.” The spotlights were plentiful and the fog settled upon the completely sold-out and riled up Sunken Gardens crowd. The band has been known to shop and phone in a few inconsistent performances in their time – not a bad thing considering the long standing tenure. Hell, I’ve seen a couple of them myself. Thursday night’s showing in San Antonio was far from that. Despite being in the heart of their tour dates, the Deftones were energetic, precise and pristine, burning through their even-keeled setlist with no setbacks or slip-ups.

A neat (or maybe not so neat, depending on how you look at it) aspect of the setlist was that it came in chunks, by albums. Three songs from Koi No Yokan were performed in a block, followed immediately by another three from the fan favorite, White Pony, which elicited the loudest response. Hearing “Feitceira” and “Knife Party” performed to the T was a nice bonus, too. And the attention to the band’s first record, 1995’s Adrenaline, was a definite surprise, as the band churned through 5 of the album’s tracks – three in the encore alone. All of the band’s members were in tip-top musical shape – especially Abe Cunningham – one of rock and roll’s most underrated drummers. Meanwhile, guitarist Stephen Carpenter handled a 7 string guitar and ex-Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega did a superb job filling in for Chi Cheng in the interim.

Rock critics may question the band’s relevancy in 2012, but their validity is second to very few. After emerging in the nu-metal arena, they’ve continued to put out quality albums and have won over new fans in droves with each new album release, while maintaining their core base. And when you see the entire fanbase spectrum come together and emphatically sing along to a two hour set with no complaints, you know you’ve got a good thing going.

[SETLIST]

photo credit: gilbertgrape