Went down to see the Deftones last night play Academy 1 in Manchester, and I have to say I was very impressed.

This is somewhat more noteworthy because I’ve actually seen the Deftones on a few occasions before and I have to confess I went to the gig with a certain amount of trepidation. See, over the few times I’ve seen them play before, about half the time they were appalling. Sloppy, loose, out of tune, generally rubbish. On the other hand, about the other 50% of the time, they were fantastic, tight and atmospheric.

So the gig started and they murdered the first two tracks. Sloppy rubbish.

Thankfully last night was one of the fantastic performances, and I suppose I should tip the scale of the Deftones live to being “fantastic” as opposed to “dubious”, you see, after the first two tracks they were probably the best I’ve ever seen them.

It probably helped that they played a large amount of older material, and more specifically the stuff I prefer (Around the Furr and White Pony era stuff), even pulling off both the Around the Furr title track without the additional vocals and Passenger without Maynard (from Tool) doing the second piece. Only a few tracks off the latest CD, and noticeably nothing off their hit and miss self titled cd (upsettingly lacking the “hit” tracks like Battle-Axe, which was always great live), but made up for by the strength of the back catalogue.

If I were the complaining type I’d moan that they played “Back To School”, which even at the time was a piss poor “single” remix of the fantastic Pink Maggit, but you know, if the crowd beg for rubbish rap-metal, I guess you have to deliver right? It’s just depressing that they’d play such an awful version of such a great song.

Back to the point, if you like this sort of thing and the current Deftones tour floats past you, I’d really suggest you go have a listen if last nights performance was anything to go by.