Aside from seeing more live shows than most past years, 2025 has objectively sucked for me so far. That being said…getting to see Deftones twice and having them release a new album within the past 7 months has been a bright spot. This is still the same North American Tour 2025 but “part 2” and of course they are playing the new material. On top of that they are featuring Phantogram for select dates including this show in Milwaukee (IDLES are splitting the other dates on this leg of the tour).
Show was at the Fiserv Forum. Only other show I saw here was Foo Fighters a couple years back and they set a very high bar for experiences at this venue. Concession prices here are a bit higher that some others but I don’t drink when flying solo so who cares about spending an extra dollar on a Diet Coke.
Seat was Sec 102, Row 12, Seat 1. This was the aisle seat just left of the center section. I have no gripes about the location itself – frankly I usually prefer about this level to be even with the stage height and to be just high enough so that everyone below doesn’t get into my sight line since I’m short. View of the control booth below to show some reference. However these seats are angled so your body is positioned facing like 30 degrees from the stage center view, and the seat cushion (at least of my seat) was so worn out I was having leg pain unless I sat in the perfect way. Plus the entire seating risers wobbled every time someone stomped or walked down the row making me feel like I was being shaken in a mild earthquake. Very weird, not enjoyable, will hesitate on this venue going forward.
The Barbarians of California
Opening band was The Barbarians of California. Setlist here. The nicest thing I can say is that they announced during the set that this was like their 9th show together as a band. Didn’t care much for their material, that’s just me. Couldn’t really get good photos during this part, think it was due to heavy smoke machine use and lighting color choices.
Phantogram
I’m not sure how to classify Phantogram as a musical style or genre (electronica dream pop?) but it isn’t my typical go-to style. They have always been in my periphery though and they’ve had some big hits that likely most people have heard even though they may not know them as a household name (see: “When I’m Small“). But they’ve got some interesting material and I can see how they fit with Deftones even though they probably dovetail better with Chino’s side-project Crosses. Then again it does seem Deftones’ fan base are trending younger lately which is interesting to see and I think that demographic overlaps better than, for example, old geezers like me that cut our teeth on Adrenaline. Setlist here.
Really hard to get photos during this set. Above the control booth was a thin bar of lights that were programmed to blind the fuck out of the audience other than the pit/floor. Frankly I only actually saw half this set because of this poor design. Had they just left that one tiny strip of lights completely off it would have improved things immensely. Not that the band will ever see this but honestly y’all should axe that lighting engineer for detracting from your show. Another weird thing that started a few songs into the set was that sound levels for everything got jacked up by like 20 decibels to the point I was getting ear pain and the sound mix got muddled. Not sure if that’s from the band’s audio engineers or the house but again took away from an otherwise great set.
Deftones
Not much to say other than I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a bad Deftones show. They bring it. Setlist here. They started off and ended the show with the old school jams and had a good mix in between including the new album material. Their lighting and A/V were almost identical to the first leg of the tour but nothing wrong with that – they have some great visuals and the lighting was top-notch (and thankfully there was no more blinding goofy lights like the Phantogram set).
Fairly sure this was Digital Bath. Animated green ripples that were moving like audio waveforms, gave off a Matrix-type vibe.
Can’t recall specifically when this was from (maybe Entombed?) but the giant woman bleeding from her eye was one heck of a visual. Audio quality was getting a bit loud/muddy again causing my ears to feel like bleeding but it didn’t take away much from the show since their brand is often loud and aggressive anyways.
Space scenes during Hole in the Earth. I learned during the January show in Chicago that lots of younger fans know this one from either TikTok or some video games but not sure which. Always interesting to hear how people get into their music.
Couple shots of the crowd. I did notice a very diverse age range here in Milwaukee and the show earlier this year in Chicago. Plenty of senior citizens and a much larger number of kids young enough to be with their parents (many even being their first concert ever). Wait…I think I’m in that old head group now? Suppose it has been 30 years next year since my first time seeing them. Just typing that sentence makes my back hurt, ow…
And that caps another great show. My neck and back hurt from all the head-banging but it’s worth it. Can’t wait to see them again.
