Deftones At Centre Bell

I usually drive in to shows that I cover in Montreal.   But, when there is a show at the Centre Bell I tend to take public transit in order to save myself the hassle of traffic and trying to find parking near the arena.  There is one other plus to leaving the car at home.  The ride in to the show is often a very good indication of the good time to come.  On this evening, I was sharing my metro car with the usual collection of black t-shirts and long hair.  All of them excited to be heading in to the rock show.  The feeling is mutual and actually amplified by being there among them.  And why not be excited?  After all, Deftones were in town.  This current tour, in support of their latest album, Private Music, has been getting rave reviews so far and everyone was really looking forward to this show.  With the gauntlet thrown, Deftones didn’t waste much time coming out to make a mark of their own.  Deftones singer Chino Moreno confidently strode to his box at the front of the stage.  From there he smirked before letting loose a guttural scream from the depth of his soul before leaping to the stage as the band broke in to ‘Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)’.  We were shooting from the soundboard, which will usually illicit a groan, but in this case, it allowed us a full view of that stage and the great visuals which were used for each song.  The background used for the third song, ‘my mind is a mountain’ from Private Music, was by far my favourite.  It was the red motif laid over the periodic table of elements.  It made those symbols instantly more interesting to me in a few minutes.  Much more than a whole semester of science ever did.  We trudged away from our position at the soundboard as Deftones continued their sonic assault on the senses of those who remained, making sure that that metro ride home would be just as memorable as the ride that had brought us all to the arena together.  The photographs were all taken at f/3.2 while using various different shutter speeds, ISO settings and focal lengths.  Here are a few more photographs that I took of Deftones as they performed on the Centre Bell stage.

If you would like to find out more about Deftones and their music, you can do so by following the link to their website.  If you would like to see the photographs that I took of Idles, who performed earlier in the evening, you can do so by following the link.  A big thank you goes out to David Benveniste, Samantha Waterman and Taryn Mazza of Velvet Hammer Management and Christopher Gonda of V13 Media for getting me a pass to the shoot the show.  As always, I very much appreciate the opporutnity.  Deftones remain on tour until November, with a couple of 2026 shows already scheduled as well.  Don’t you dare miss it when they play in a town near you.