1. Deftones are mostly playing arenas and amphitheaters on this tour, and perhaps a larger room would have also made more sense for the Las Vegas stop. Sure, it’s a treat for 3,000 ticket-holders to catch them in a relatively intimate environment, but capacity falls far short of demand for the band's first local performance in five years. Fans are spread across three floors at the Cosmopolitan—the casino on the main level, the box office on the second and the Chelsea on the third—desperately asking for extras. The get-in price on the secondary ticket market does drop throughout the day, but only to $210 before fees as opening act Vowws hits the stage beneath vast clouds of smoke accentuating its minimalist, gothy synth-rock.
2. The Chelsea’s general-admission floor famously bounces during concerts, but it has perhaps never done so as violently as throughout a 65-minute support slot from French progressive metallers Gojira. Between the pummeling death-metal riffs of guitarists Joe Duplantier and Christian Andreu, the destructive drumming of Mario Duplantier and a constant swirling circle pit, the Chelsea feels like a trampoline. “I felt that f*cking floor rumbling,” Deftones frontman Chino Moreno later says of Gojira during his own band’s set. Gojira’s seventh album, 2021’s Fortitude, alienated some longtime fans by not being as heavy as past material, but the four new songs performed sound awfully hulking in Las Vegas. The band is a sight to behold—21 years of nonstop touring and recording with the same lineup has it at the peak of their powers right now.
3. That’s more than can be said for the headliners. Deftones put on their standard terrific performance sonically, but the onstage chemistry feels a bit lacking with new touring bassist Fred Sablan playing just his sixth show. The band unceremoniously parted ways with Sergio Vega, who had held down the low end for the past 13 years, before its first post-pandemic shutdown tour, without any formal statement. Vega publicly announced his departure, citing his frustration with the band only offering to renew his status as a contractor instead of making him a full-time member as he says he was once promised. The longtime Quicksand bassist has been a huge part of Deftones’ sustained late-career blossoming and it’s disappointing not to hear him play songs off 2020’s Ohms, the band’s most critically acclaimed work in 20 years.
4. They might still be finding their live footing post-Vega, but Deftones still gets high marks for not letting the personnel switch limit their versatility. They reference all eras of the band in the setlist, with at least one song off each of the nine full-length albums. That includes a handful of diverse-sounding deeper cuts like the mysterious “Royal” off 2010’s Diamond Eyes, the wistful “Beware” off 2008’s Saturday Night Wrist and the pulsing “Bloody Cape” off 2003’s self-titled LP. The band evens nod to diehard fans by closing the main set with a song unfamiliar to a large portion of the audience—“Lovers,” a B-side from a 2003 single.
5. In total, 10 of the 19 songs Deftones play come from the latter half of the band’s career—and no one in attendance seems the least bit disappointed. That split toward recency, and the ensuing crowd approval, is rare with bands that originate in the metal scene, especially those like Deftones who don’t necessarily sound all that metal anymore. The overwhelming response to the material he helped craft turns out inadvertently as the best-possible testament to Vega’s stint in the band.
