Kevin Ashburn
There is a fervor building on the concourse and as Drug Church step out on stage, they seem a little taken back that so many people are there and ready to engage. The crowd more than hold up to their end of the bargain as well as the calls from Patrick Kindlon for crowd surfers is met with overwhelming enthusiasm. The pit is bouncing from minute one to the closing notes of “Weed Pin”, despite the Bp Pulse’s best attempts to swallow the sound whole. No one seems to care, and there is a rapturous applause as Kindlon thanks the disparate subcultures for coming together tonight, with specific emphasis on the “goth baddies”.
Denzel Curry could have been an outlier on this package, and yet the Floridian rapper has built up enough credit in the bank for the arena to be full by the time he walks out on stage. Visually, he cuts a rather lonely figure on the large stage, set up just in front of Deftones’ backline, but he makes the most of it with an audience who are hanging on to every single word. There is an arena performer in Curry somewhere down the line, but on his own terms. The cover of ‘Bulls On Parade’ is a highlight and whatever fears there may have been about this not working are dead and buried.
Deftones have always had a reputation of being hit or miss live. Sometimes you’ll get a career defining show, and on others, well, pub band at the Dog and Duck would be harsh but not entirely unfair. Tonight is closer to the former as they look like they always have belonged in rooms this big with the opening notes of ‘Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)’ almost swallowed by the noise of 15,000 people losing their collective shit. Chino is beaming with the biggest smile, completely lost in the love they’re receiving as the band run through cuts from their back catalogue with minimal disruption. Leaning heavily on Private Music material as well is a smart move, and the likes of ‘milk of the madonna’, ‘cut hands’ (stopped part way through due to a medical emergency which was quickly attended to by the venue staff), and ‘infinite source’ are met with just as much enthusiasm as the classics. These songs were just made to be played in rooms like this. All chaos breaks loose as the encore closes with dyed in the wool classics ‘My Own Summer (Shove It)’ and ‘7 Words’ and it’s hard to see this as anything other than a real moment. Deftones have always been an integral part of the fabric of heavy music, and now it really feels like it’s their time to be front and centre of it.