Send your reviews to: nunorolinho@gmail.com
I'll only accept reviews from recent shows!
I went to see the Deftones Taste of Chaos concert on March 15th 2006 at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland
this concert was siamoultaneously the best and worst concert I have attended. Street Drum Coprs and
The Deftones made it THE BEST up to this point in my life. Five hours of lame emo bands made it the worst.
The big stage was cutinto a certian chunks-one third of the way in from the left was where a bunch of very
underground bands played, and the remainder two thirds of the big stage was where the big bands played.
I was just mainly here to see The Deftones (i ended up enjoying Street Drum Coprs. a lot, but didnt know they
were gonna be there, so i was just there for the Deftones). My friend Loren and I got there just early enough to
get right up against the front. This is the dream scenario for all of those with floor seats. But i also had to be right
there for all the emo and its many variations that were on display for the evening. I won't talk much about those
bands. Funeral for a Friend were pretty decent. Their drummer has the typical screamo drumer voice and their
singer mostly sang. The crowd tricked the singer into saying "STEELERS SUCK" and he got freaked out for a
second cause he realized that Cleveland Browns fans tricked him into dissing the Pittsburgh Steelers (who as
we all know have a long standing pointless feud) and he told the crowd to leave him out of it, and hemade jokes
about it for the rest of the nite. They were alright, their guitarists played some kinda thrashy stuff and I didn't
mind them. I couldn't stand As I Lay Dying, and they opened with that song of theirs i can't stand that was all
over the headbangers ball a couple years ago. I really can't stand atreyu. They no longer dress like goth kids,
cause it isnt as trendy to do so as it was a couple years ago, but their drummer who did some screaming was
dressed in white paint and something resembling pajamas and he had three kick drums on his set, and i take
it one of them was the "vanity kick" just there to look cool.Story of the Year was actually really awesome.
Their stage presence is great and their songs are too. The only really emo thing about them was the way their
drummer played and their guitar sound. It was a really good emo sound but the riffs aren't emo when you get
down to the core of them. They really did the best job out of the pre Deftones and Street Drum Corps bands.
They had their act down tight. At one point, one of their guitarists tossed his 5 million dollar PRS guitar all the
way accross the stage and his guitar technicial caught it. Nice catch dude. Plus, that same guitarist kept
running around with his mike stand when his tech kept trying to take it away from them. They ended their first
song with the ending to "Mouth for War" by Pantera, and on their last song they have one of their fat friends
play bass instead of their bassist. I couldn't stand Thrice. Their songs are longer than the average emo band
and even though they have a few non emo elements about them, they still count. You can hear the emo in their
riffs and singing, but they did have weird piano interludes between songs. I was nearly exhausted from the
emoness. I decided that when i got home after the concert that i would bathe twice to cleanse my soul of emo.
After Thrice, things got way more interestin. The Street Drum Coprs took the small stage and were absolutely
fucking awesome. They were painted like those guys in that Batman movie with Mr. Freese, those guys in al
black with the lumincescent paint, and they just were fucking awesome. They banged on garbage cans, car
mufflers, gutted fire extinguishers, and pieces of metal probably warped by heat or stolen from a junkyard.
They had this weird yet awesome movie clip playing behind them, and just flat out they were awesome.
This is how having three drummers in your band SHOULD be done, Slipknot. And then, The Deftones.
The lights dimmed. Stephen came out with his silver ESP 6 string (im pretty sure it was a 6) and was playing
some weird volume swells with no lights. Then the rest of the bandmembers joined during this moment, and
BOOM. Stephen launched into the opening riff to Feitceria. Fucking A, man! Chi has really long hair now, Abe
looks a lot like a red headed bowflex commercial, and Chino isnt in nearly as bad shape as some of the earlier
pictures from this tour that i saw. Stephen's hair is grown to shoulder length, Frank looks the same.
Chino was goin off all over the place and during Feitceria, i could hear all the people around me chanting
"SOON I'LL LET YOU GO!" over and over, including myself. My Own Summer (Shove It was Next).
Abe smacked that snare and I knew what I was in for. The crowd started goin nuts during that first repetition
of the chorus riff in the song, the one without Chino singing over it. The crowd went nuts and shouted at the
top of their lungs" SHOVE IT SHOVE IT SHOVE IT". It was great. Beware of the Water was next. I have heard
the low quality bootleg of this song, and it was amazing live. Chino playing guitar and Steph on keyboards.
But Chino vocally punctuated some of the vocal lives of the verse with a scream. That song is so amazingly
haunting, and Chino noodled slightly on guitar at one point. Next up was RX Queen, and the Street Drum
Coprs joined them onstage for this. They had luminescent bongo drums and played along PERFECTLY with
Abe. That song is really hard to pull off on drums, cause of some of the weird timings, and i threw up the
horns to one of the Street Drum Coprs guys and he banged his head at us. Sweet. Next up-Bloody Cape.
That song was REALLY fucking heavy, and Chino screamed REALLY HIGH PITCHED during the insane ending
breakdown to the song. It was really neat. Be Queit and Drive was incredible. I was expecting it to sound
heavier thru Steph's rig, but it sounded different and a little less heavy, but that was actually oddly good,
cause for some reason it made the song sound better, which says a lot, cause it is already awesome. Steph
didn't play those little octave chord fills that you hear on the CD kinda deep down in the mix. They did a great
job on that song. He came over to our chunk of the sage and knelt down and sang some of it. Minerva was
fantastic. Chino strapped on guitar and started playing that gentle riff that kicks off the song, and every yelled
in approval. Everyone singing along to "And God bless you all, for the song you saved us" and when it dropped
out to Chino's riff in that song at certian points, it was beautiful. Hexagram was up next. Easily the heaviest
song I've heard the Deftones ever write or play. The riffs sounded to great live, the timings in the chorus were
perfect, and Chino went up to the front barricade and screamed "WORSHIP PLAY PLAY" over and over for
most of that song to the front row, futher down from where we were. That song was so fucking insane, you have
no idea. To be honest, between songs, i was yelling "HEXAGRAM!!!!" when they would be getting new guitars
on, and I was so glad they played it. Next up was Nosebleed. I never really liked Adrenaline cause of how
non expansive it is compared to their other stuff, but that song sounded great live. Very pleasent surpirse. Next
up was Change. I was hoping to hear that one as much, if not more than Hexagram, so you have no idea how
happy i was to hear Chino playing that opening riff. The whole crowd sung along big time to the Chorus, as did I,
and it was very enjoyable and rewarding, seeing as how that song and I go back. The next song was a new song.
I know this cause after it Chino said "that was some new shit right there", and i was pretty surprised by it. Abe's
drumming had a slightly punkish touch to it, with lotsa snare drum hits, and Stephen's riffing was really fast and
intricate. At the end of each verse, Chino screamed really pitched, almost like a terodactyl, and the chorus had
him saying "RAIN RAIN RAIN" over and over at a certian part in it. I didn't think it was a Deftones song at first,
cause Stephen's riffs were really intricate and almost Iron Maiden-y, but still undeniablty Steph. Around the Fur
was up next. I was pleased cause I've been listening to that song a lot over the last couple months, and i didn't
think they'd play it until i heard Abe launch into that opening drum beat that just punches you over and over.
Chino was insane on this song. I love that ending freakout he does. 7 words was the "last" song they did. Steph's
opening riff and the FX with it were very audibe, as were his elephant like"guitar screams" in the chorus, and the
crowd was chanting half of the "SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCK" chorus and the other half Chino would run around
and flip out. That was a great way to "end" but they came out to do a one song encore. They did Engine Number 9
and it was sweet. Steph played the opening riff WAY WAY WAY WAY faster than on CD but the rest of the song
somehow stuck to it's awesome original tempo. Chino was really involvedin this song due to it's rap like quality,
and in the middle of it they did Wicked by Ice Cube, with the rest of the band doign their own version of it that was
very different from Korn's version, before ending the song. Someone threw those oversived hawaiian sunglasses
onstage and Chino wore em for most of the song.
The band played very tightly. Abe is rhythmix as hell, Chi really adds the beef, Steph is intricate and percise as hell,
Frank's atmospherics were incredible, and Chino was awesome. Chino did miss some parts because he had to turn
on or off a guitar effect or flip out onstage, but it was still human and incredibly rewarding. The guys also seemed to be
getting along really well onstage. They defidently seem in good spirits to me. Thank you Deftones!!!!!!!!!!!
