On an insultingly dreary February night, Berlin’s Max-Schmeling-Halle is as dark as one would consider appropriate for a metal concert. Under the cover of the never-ending Northern European winter darkness, entering alone requires platforming over patches of ice and snirt and navigating hidden streams of squirting slush in freezing weather. Guess it turned out for the best that nearly everyone in the 12,000-strong crowd wore black to this Deftones concert.
Inside, a thick smell of beer and, unfortunately, sweat envelops the senses, with a visual backdrop of ads for an upcoming concert by the Swedish black metal band Amon Amarth. Hordes of teenagers and elders alike squiggle around the stands, latching on to rails or trying to snatch the best spots despite clearly reserved seating. This is a stereotypical sold-out large-venue atmosphere, only amplified by the try-hard brashness of hatchling metalheads. The faces, the energy, the moshing, it all screams a rock-hard attitude – except the speakers are blasting Enya’s “Caribbean Blue”.
Welcome to the Deftones show, a glorious dichotomy of extremes. Over three decades into a wildly successful and rare career where no integrity had been sacrificed to popularity, the Sacramento quintet remains true to their aesthetic of drawing tenderness from belligerence. Even more fascinatingly, ten albums in, the great metal romantics are more popular than ever.
Last time Deftones played in Berlin, at a post-COVID gig in June 2022, one could easily get a ticket for about $80; while decently crowded, the 4,500-capacity Verti Music Hall never sold out. Fast forward three and a half years, and 12,000 tickets at an average of $120 a pop sold out so fast that scalpers effortlessly commanded a cool 50% markup. What’s more, the Californians will be back on the 18th of August at Wuhlheide, the famous outdoor arena that packs up to 17,000 fans.
That’s 7x-ing the audience in under four years. All this hype comes a quarter of a century after their era-defining White Pony and the zeitgeist Deftones shared with the likes of Korn and Limp Bizkit back when they were still known as “nu-metal”.
A popular revival is nothing unusual, but in the case of Deftones, the changes to their status and listenership have been seismic. How did this happen? Another resurgence of sociopolitically charged middle-aged nostalgia, like what we’ve seen with Oasis last year? Not exactly. Remember those hordes of eager teens bulldozing through the crowd I mentioned? This fantastic renaissance is mostly their doing.
In 2022, the viscerally emotional “Cherry Waves” became a TikTok sensation, followed by the legendary goth romance “Change (In the House of Flies)”, the latter surging to more than half a billion plays on Spotify. “Hole in the Earth”, “Beware”, “Rosemary”, and more decade-old singles followed. The flattening of time through algorithmic mashup on social media that positions older tunes side by side with current charting singles means any performer is now fair game, so long as their soundscaping grabs your attention and matches the aesthetic of the hottest content.
The younger generations thus discovered Deftones, the ever-evolving alternative rockers often called “the Radiohead of metal” by the older music pundits. Noisy and confrontational but also proudly adept at putting emotions front and center, they are the ideal entry point to heavier and alternative music for the self-aware, emotionally attuned kids of today.
Consequently, and in line with topical lingo, Deftones frontman Chino Moreno, otherwise a vocal titan in the alternative circles, is today most famous as a “daddy”. As their streaming numbers skyrocketed from two to 17 million listeners on Spotify since 2020, the band recently sold the rights to most of their music to Warner Music Group for an undisclosed sum. Informal estimates go up to $75 million. Popularity works in mysterious ways, but the end result is usually a fiscal boom.
Certainly, there are other factors at play. Deftones’ experimentation with genres and emotional openness seldom seen in metal groups (i.e., straight men) positions them as a uniquely attractive band for diverse profiles. Layered upon Stephen Carpenter’s thick, cascading riffs, Chino Moreno’s pensive lyrics and delivery privilege heartfelt belting over growling, speaking to anyone for whom the experience of listening to music is an adventure.
Much of metal is about letting off steam and screaming at the world; Deftones, however, boldly operate in a tricky liminal space of confrontation within oneself. Their musical expression is playful and demanding, but also honest, inviting, and inclusive.
The knack for innovation and standards of practice that saw the Californians score stellar reviews across decades is another major contributor. From nu metal and dream pop to the nu gaze era of shoegaze and now “zoomergaze”, Deftones always, without exception, deliver music that is at once en vogue and timeless. Unsurprisingly, last year’s soaring, fuzzy, uncanny Private Music became their best-rated album yet. Deftones’ shift from the fringes of mainstream to cultural canon only made sense. It was long overdue.
To be fair, one must also acknowledge that nostalgia plays a part in the resurgence of bands popular at the turn of the century. Oasis mania (and without a new album to promote!), headlining comebacks by everyone from System of a Down to Moby, and sold-out festivals lining up legacy acts speak clearly of the people’s cultural needs.
It would be too much of a digression to hypothesize about the nature of this nostalgia, but citing the increased buying power of 1990s kids is an easy way to give the phenomenon meaning. Conversely, noting the declining quality of music and culture overall and the alienation of people from their emotions by the AI-happy ruling classes of the neoliberal 21st century would be a more challenging explanatory approach… that we will leave for another day.
Whatever one’s reasoning for being at the Max-Schmeling Halle on the 6th of February 2026, seeing Deftones live is visceral proof enough of their enormous capabilities. When Moreno runs in front of drummer Abe Cunningham, keyboardist Frank Delgado, bassist Fred Sablan, second guitarist Shaun Lopez, and ersatz guitarist Lance Jackman (filling in for Carpenter, who won’t fly), you know sparks will fly the moment he starts his signature sway atop the floor speakers.
The new tour is no exception, and it’s invigorating to see all these eager kids side by side with early days fans in their 50s or 60s, marveling at the tenacity and complexity of a band that always deserved to play colossal venues, but only now got around to doing so. Hundreds of moshers and thousands of shrieking teenagers whose screams align with both melodies and vocals made for an impression of headliner grandiosity.
The atmosphere was electrostatic, like a foretelling of a thunderstorm, but the deceivingly thanatic throbbing would give way to a cleansing, regenerating wave of profound feeling, time and again. Soppy as this description may be, such is the effect of Deftones live. Whatever your age, you don’t come to their shows just to purge. You come to soar.
To Deftones’s credit, this massive show is no different from the ones they played in smaller venues and in broad daylight at festivals over the past decades. This is a committed band that creates its legacy and honors its vision by channeling a genuine love for the craft, another thing the fans pick up organically. The setlist typically kicks off with the wonderfully oscillating “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)”, a metal-meets-shoegaze inheritor to Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again”, and their first hit from the 1990s. Nearly three decades in, the song is as fresh as ever, easily a canonical tune in alt-rock history.
As the crowd sings along, clips from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain grace the stage-wide screen. The surrealism of the 1973 avant-garde film that amassed a cult following fits perfectly with the pensiveness that permeates even the harshest riffs.
The clips fit like hand-in-glove with the Deftones’ unrelenting romanticism: a flock of birds flying away during “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)”, a volcano eruption for “ecdysis”, breaking waves and a woman twirling underwater for “Sextape”, a gently dancing ballerina during “Cherry Waves”… The immersion in, or, better yet, suspension in a dreamlike state evoking imagery of myth and folklore makes the show all the more impressive, given its sonic landscape.
Speaking of sonic landscaping, there is no shortage of hard-hitting chords and fuzzy riffs that stretch to the skies. “Hole in the Earth” and “My Own Summer (Shove It)” come in as old school singles to bring moshing and shrieking to a boiling point, but it’s the sheer scope of Private Music that is the evening’s real standout. With seven tracks from the 2025 release, one would easily think it too much for a 20-song setlist, or perhaps out of tune with the rest of the opus, but the new songs are as impressive as anything that came before.
“My mind is a mountain”, “milk of the madonna” and “ecdysis” (all stylized in lowercase), especially, provide a potent soundscape complement to 2020’s excellent Ohms, which they never got to tour because of the COVID pandemic. Private Music’s melancholy atmosphere and rich progressions, both arpeggiated and stochastic, hit like an accomplished mixing of Deftones’ famed traditions, primal affectiveness imbued exquisite kindness.
Moreno, his typical boyish self in plain (now “skater-dad” rather than just skater) clothes, smiles throughout, repeatedly calling the fans “wonderful” and addressing the crowd with the enthusiasm of a wide-eyed teenager, much like the ones staring at him from the other side of the stage. That there is no hint of toxic masculinity or conceit in his demeanor is perhaps the greatest gift Deftones have ever bestowed on their listeners. There truly is nothing more radical or rewarding than honesty thoroughly suffused with love.
If there is one thing that made this fantastic set imperfect, it’s the omission of several intense songs that skyrocket into the stratosphere, most notably “Swerve City”, “Ohms”, and “Tempest”. Understandably, a show with this level of energy can hardly be sustained for more than 90 or so minutes, especially with musicians in their 50s (I’m in my 30s and struggling to stand all the way through, so no judgment), but for the pickier of us, a tinge of sadness remains whenever a band promoting a new album has to perform triage on the more established tracks. Better luck next time, I guess.
None of this matters much in the end, though, and that’s yet another testament to the power Deftones bring with them. New tunes are indistinguishable in quality from the more famous ones, and older tunes strike with a melodic and vocal freshness that makes it clear why these metal OGs can still compete with younger musicians for the love of hatchling listeners – and win, easily. The show before us, bursting with sweat and smiles, honors the mutual trust and love that transcends generations.
All these years in, era after accelerated era, Deftones remain one of metal’s all-time greatest balancing acts, brutal and delicate in ways that engage and challenge their listeners far beyond the limitations of popular genres to pass the time. Most bands can only dream of having a single album that moves mountains by finding sophistication and tenderness within walls of jittery grinding riffs – the Sacramento quintet has ten such albums, and they show no signs of slowing down. If anything, they now have more reason than ever to keep their winning streak strong. The summer leg of Deftones’ tour cannot come soon enough.