Music Review: The Deftones’ transcendental knife party in Manila

Chino Moreno is bent way over with his legs crouched, both his arms holding on to the mic like it was a wand, looking like he’s screaming his lungs out at the floor or his shoes.

This is his classic “am rocking out like a golden god” vocalist pose. It’s been immortalized by many a fan attempting to make a Deftones wallpaper from their bad, but high-resolution photos.

It’s a humid and surprisingly cool night at the World Trade Center in Pasay City. The weather’s almost changing to the wet season and the heat’s been ebbing, or at least it hasn’t been that aggressive. The last time Deftones played back in 2011, the heat carried over to the night and made everything seem dry and bleached of moisture.

Fast forward two years later and the boys from Sacramento, California have a new album and are touring Asia in support of it.

Last time I bought a ticket and stood in the cheapest section with my friends. We climbed the support structure that housed the sound board and the video camera on top of it to get a better view of the stage until the bouncers shooed us off with threats of bodily harm.

This time I’ve come on official press business, with the blessing of the organizers Splintr, the same guys who brought them to Manila the last time.

What this meant was I got access to the stage; at least for the first three songs.

To see Chino do his thing up close is one of those transcendent moments that rock critics like to talk about but never quite capture, mostly because a whole lot of us have become purists of the recorded version of music. It’s a slow dive for aging pundits but comes with the territory.

Deftones' Chino Moreno bounces off of the pulsing audience of their “Koi No Yokan” show at the World Trade Center in Pasay City. Photo by Sam Kiyoumarsi

When I go on assignments to concerts I don’t even have a drink anymore. True, I have a better time on alcohol, but it screws up the observation and makes most of my social skills (which are already badly-calibrated anyway) fly out the window.

Which is to say that “Rocket Skates” as an explosive opener took me entirely by surprise.

It’s like being handed a piece of bacon, you take a bite expecting it to be completely ordinary and this turns out to be A-grade, Bourdain-approved stuff, albeit still bacon. It’s a weird analogy if you’re not eating quality bacon right now like I am.

Let me elaborate. Standing inside the media pit, five feet away from the stage that I could have laid siege to and climb if I was determined enough, the crowd was quickly jumping in place like a pulsing, breathing creature. This mass beside me was dangerous (I can’t tell you the number of mosh pit mishaps I’ve been in) but they were young and, as far as I could tell, not really bent on harming each other.

It was still a good thing that I was completely separated by the barricades and about six hulking bouncers who made me feel safe and without the need to conserve energy.  

One of the most influential acts to come out of the 90s with a sound that fused alternative, metal, and atmospheric stylings using seven- and eight-string guitars, I came to the Deftones like many in my generation did with “Around the Fur”, their hugely successful sophomore effort.

While the Deftones’ sound of metal and alt rock, of Radiohead and Sabbath meeting at the crossroads has since become highly influential, what they were and what they now are can be marked with arguable definition with the way tragedy has changed them and the way they’ve reacted to it.

I’m talking about the accident and eventual death of their former bassist Chi Cheng.

The man was in a head-on car collision in Santa Clara, California, in 2008. That event left him in a coma for the last four years until his passing in April this year, the musician and poet (he was a pretty good one, too, that mixed Asian American themes with inner city sensibilities), was such a big creative force in the band that the Deftones took a decidedly more positive approach to their songs when they carried on while the man was hooked up to machines.

Or at least that’s how it sounded to me.

2010’s “Diamond Eyes” and the current album are almost upbeat and positive, trying to consciously keep spirits up while waiting for Cheng to recover, and at the same time trying to confront the fact that he most likely never will. Not to say that they’re not loud or aggressive what with “Swerve City” and “Leathers” in there, but repeated listens have cemented this impression in my head.

2012’s “Koi No Yokan” is often melodramatic and obtuse, like the final stages of surmounting grief. All those darkest-before-the-dawn analogies are correct. You beat your chest one last time before you open your fist and let your loved one go.

This album is like that in both its soft, often very soft, and loud variations. Like a drunk staggering through the streets and heading home, the walk actually clearing his head and realizing that he’s more intoxicated with emotion than the whiskey. It’s a cathartic moment. It’s a messy moment.

The “premonition of love’s scent” (an indirect translation, mind, since there is no direct translation) brings down an intensity of emotive fullness that bursts and requires you to fall on your knees. If you’re not going through anything particularly difficult at the moment you might find this sonically confusing and at times boring to listen to. But in the throes of a break-up, a loss, or on the cusp of change this is an album that is excellent at helping you pry open your own chrysalis. Like sonic balm.

Back at the concert, hearing them play old stuff like “Knife Party” was glorious and absolutely invigorating. So were “My own Summer (Shove It)”, “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)”, “Digital Bath”, and “Cherry Waves” as part of the encore.

“Change (In the House of Flies)” is likely boring for those of us who’ve sung it to ourselves on guitar while we learned the basics of Carpenter’s riffing techniques. But it’s still pretty powerful live, especially since they didn’t play it back in 2011. The new stuff, more melodic and with a different flowing vibe, fit in with a cresting texture in a set that included a tribute to the fallen Chi Cheng titled “Rivière.”

There was a lot of space left over at the VIP section, while the Gold and Silver sections were quite packed. This prompted Moreno to once again jump the barricades and sing for all the people at the back. This guy’s fearless and pretty confident with his physicality. Though I wonder why the stage director couldn’t have let in some of the people from the lower sections to fill in the VIP part? There would have been more people for Chino to bounce off of, then.  

At one point guitarist Stephen Carpenter missed a riff segue, and then later the flow was interrupted when Sergio Vega threw back his bass because the roadie hadn’t handed him the correct instrument for the new song yet but Chino had already signaled the crowd to jump on his count. It was a funny moment when Chino picked up the roadie and spun him around as the guy tried to unsnag the mic’s cord from the pogoing singers neck.

Moreno and the rest of the Deftones got to rock out like golden gods for their adoring Filipino moshers. Photo by Sam Kiyoumarsi

At the press conference a day previous, guitarist Stephen Carpenter was remarkably vehement when someone asked about album leaks: “Nobody respects privacy anymore. And I mean no one! You want to keep something private? You keep it here [points at temple] and don’t record it.”

To which drummer Abe Cunnigham—in a Death Angel shirt—grinned and downplayed his guitar player’s sharp words as he held the mic to his mouth, to Stephen’s, and then back to him: “And he’ll tell you about it, too!”

Moreno, meanwhile was relaxed and in high spirits, like tempered excitements. I found him remarkably soft-spoken in contrast to his active stage persona who liked to dive into crowds and then run of to another part of the arena.

Did you know Chino likes to sew in his spare time? He repairs rips and tears from shirts on pants. “It’s pretty relaxing. Yeah, try it,” he grinned.

This was apropos of my question about non-musical pursuits that helped them relax, and the documentary “Blood Into Wine”, where former collaborator Maynard James Keenan (Tool, Puscifer) distances himself from his heavy music and art by making wine in Arizona.

Back at the WTC, as the encore wound down, the epic and grunge-hoary “7 Words” closed down the show. No premonitions here, just an experience of the moment lived without preconception or agenda. — DVM, GMA News