Deftones @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 13 Feb

Judging by the sheltered red bridge that connects Finnieston to the Clydeside concert arenas, Deftones are the great unifier. Old school metalheads? Off to Deftones. Goth girlies and drainers? Deftones. 14-year-old on TikTok? Deftones. Curated taste music nerd? Deftones. Parent of 14-year-old on TikTok? You’re going to see Deftones. Generations and subcultures brought together to bow at the altar of arguably the greatest heavy band of the last 30+ years.

The booking of the undercard on this behemoth headline tour brings an added intrigue. The lineup suggests a sense of the lineage and modern history of heavy music, the band, and its influences and progeny, that shows this size rarely bring. Drug Church are the type of respected but jobbing post-hardcore band Deftones once were and could have stayed; no doubt, countless post-hardcore bands have sprung up in the Sacramentans’ wake. Their music is spritely and energetic, with frontman Patrick Kindlon taking his role as de facto MC for the night very seriously, urging the still scattered crowd “from note one, move your asses”, and goading 100 people to crowd surf over the barrier. Florida rapper Denzel Curry follows, the other tendril in the long shadow of Deftones, this time the nu-metal embrace of rap. Curry’s music is slightly more nuanced, with his concept records and understanding of regional styles, but closing his set with a cover of Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade is both a canny choice to further amp the filled-out audience and nail his true colours to the mast.

Image: Deftones @ OVO Hydro, Glasgow, 13 Feb by Marilena Vlachopoulou

This ouroboros of heaviness is starkly rendered when Deftones arrive on stage with Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away). It’s a wormhole that takes us back to Around the Fur, when Deftones of now came to be, its shimmering walls of guitar and Chino Moreno’s vocal swinging from sultry moan to piercing stab. At 52-years old, Moreno is a pinball on stage, lapping and leaping, dousing himself in, and spraying, water periodically to cool down. He does not stop until the brooding Digital Bath to finally pick up a guitar. Otherwise, he’s wielding the mic as a weapon – sometimes a lasso, sometimes a nunchuck, sometimes a hammer. Around him it’s a huge production – the hi-def screen that stretches almost the entire width of the Hydro projects scenes from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s psychedelic cult classic The Holy Mountain – but Moreno’s vitality and intimacy make this giant metal cavern feel like a house show.

The set is something of a victory lap, leaning on the excellent private music from last year with scattered tracks from their whole discography, not shying away from tunes like Cherry Waves that have given them a new lease of life on social media. Change (In the House of Flies) breeds absolute chaos in the crowd despite its lower tempo, pocket pits breaking out at the sides. It’s only bested by My Own Summer (Shove It) and, even earlier, 7 Words – back through that wormhole again.