On November 17, 2010, I saw Deftones for the 3rd time, the second time this year.

Brixton Academy was the largest venue I’ve seen them perform in which is pretty surprising since they’ve been around for years now and have quite a big following. I guess I’ve just been exceptionally lucky as I saw them in ULU which is a pretty small and intimate venue.

There was a queue outside and since it was freezing cold outside, I made full use of my priority access due to being an O2 customer.

Another reason to be in the venue as soon as possible was the support band which was announced almost at the same time as the gig.

The first time I saw Deftones, they had Rival Schools as support which was pretty good but not great. I stopped listening to them in ages save for one song. The second time at their “secret” and intimate show at ULU, they had to support band.

For this evening, they had the mighty Coheed and Cambria which is another favourite band of mine whom I’ve seen just a few months back at The Forum.

Things are quite different when a band performs as support, despite being quite known already as in the case of Coheed and Cambria. The crowd was much more behaved with almost no one creating circle pits and moshing. It would be safe to assume that everyone was saving their energy for the mayhem which would be Deftones.

It was quite welcome though as I finally got to watch Coheed and Cambria properly and was even able to record a video of their opening song, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth:3 in it’s entirety. All 8 minutes of it.

This extra long opening song (which they normally play during encores) was then followed by Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood And Burial).

Here’s their setlist for the evening. Loved that they played A Favor House Atlantic.

• In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
• Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood and Burial)
• Here We Are Juggernaut
• This Shattered Symphony
• A Favor House Atlantic
• Delirium Trigger
• No World For Tomorrow
• World of Lines
• Welcome Home

Overall, a pretty neat, tidy and short set which set the night up perfectly. Despite the calmness of the crowd who were singing along, the band still played with a crazy amount of energy and it was fun just watching them properly for what seems to be the first time.

Deftones started quite early despite having a support band this time. If I recall, they were up on stage before 9 in the evening. Of course, this is all good. More Deftones.

Looking at the setlist, I know why.

• Rocket Skates
• Around The Fur
• My Own Summer (Shove It)
• Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)
• Lotion
• Feiticeira
• Digital Bath
• Knife Prty
• Elite
• Diamond Eyes
• Royal
• Prince
• CMND/CTRL
• You’ve Seen The Butcher
• Sextape
• Risk
• Bloody Cape
• Minerva
• Passenger
• Change (In the House of Flies)
• Birthmark (encore)
• Engine No. 9 (encore)
• 7 Words (encore)

Before 10 in the evening, Deftones managed to power through a 23-song set which was beyond incredible. At first glance, one would ask where the love is for their first album, Adrenalin, and then they come back with a 3-song encore of Birthmark, Engine No. 9, and 7 Words.

Knife Prty is one of my favourite songs and I was so glad they played it again. Passenger was great for the 3rd time but after seeing Hailey Williams of Paramore join him on stage, I was expecting Claudio of Coheed and Cambria to do the same but no such luck.

Despite this venue being the biggest place I’ve seen them and the farthest I’ve stood from the satege, the set list alone ranks this at the same level as the previous times I’ve seen them. I doubt I’ll ever grow tired (and old) of watching Deftones as they are truly amazing. Their energy and stage presence are incredible especially Chino’s enthusiasm.

Friends in Manila, you are in for one hell of a threat but I do believe you already know that.

I find it odd that I’ve only seen Broken Social Scene this year despite liking form years now. I sort of made up for this by seeing them for the 3rd time this year last November 15 at Koko in Camden.

I am pretty sure I’ve already said a lot about Broken Social Scene when I was them for the first time at Heaven and again in HMV Forum.

Familiar venue and headlining band but I never heard of the co-headlining band before which is Tortoise who happen to be a huge influence on Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning.

Since this was a co-headlining gig, Tortoise started earlier to give way to a much longer set compared to the usual 30-40 minutes allotted to a support band.

For the hour in which they played, I was pretty much amazed. Their music is best described as post-rock instrumental and experimental. This is a band who has been around since 1990.

There are no lyrics to their songs so it’s just pure instrument bliss which involved dual drumsets, synths, guitars, and a few other instruments I don’t know. Similar to Broken Social Scene, they flow from one instrument to another after each song. It was just beautiful watching them on stage.

After seeing Tortoise, one can clearly see their influence on Broken Social Scene, both in the songs and how they handle themselves on stage.

Before Broken Social Scene started, I was praying and hoping for some diversity in their set as the past two times I’ve seen them had almost identical songs and order aside from 2-3 songs. On both shows, they started with World Sick and ended with Meet Me In The Basement which is actually a great song to end a show with, but being the 3rd time this year, a few surprises would be more than welcome.

Alas, the intro was not of World Sick but was something completely different. I’m pretty sure it was either Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day) or Pacific Theme (it has been weeks since). Regardless, I was happy it was not World Sick as this would automatically mean the same backbone setlist to the two previous gigs. A surprise which pretty much set up the rest of the evening.

Here’s the setlist in full as far as I can remember it.

• Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)
• Pacific Theme
• 7/4 Shoreline
• Texico Bitches
• All to All
• Fire Eye’d Boy
• Cause=Time
• Sweetest Kill
• Forced to Love
• Arthouse Director
• Hotel
• Churches Under The Stairs (BSS Presents: Brendan Canning)
• Hotel
• Superconnected
• World Sick
• Lover’s Spit
• Anthems for a Seventeen Year-old Girl
• Ungrateful Little Father
• Meet Me In The Basement
• Looks Just Like The Sun (encore)
• KC Accidental (encore)
• Major Label Debut (encore)

Sweet setlist in my opinion. It had the usual songs I’ve heard at both gigs with quite a number of surprises thrown in.

After the first two songs, they were back to familiar territory with the beautiful 7/4 Shoreline followed by Texico Bitches.

Lisa Lobslinger then decided to stay on stage for two songs in a row singing All To All and Fire-Eye’d Boy in succession. I still think she is the cutest but was sort of expecting a different fancy hairstyle but ended up with the same beehive mess. Still enjoyed watching her sing and dance around on stage.

A few more familiar songs followed with Cause=Time, Sweetest Kill, Forced To Love, and Art House Director. At this point, I felt the show slip back into the typical Broken Social Scene setlist which I’ve heard before. Don’t get me wrong, I still massively enjoyed listening to the songs and watching them play it on stage, flowing from one instrument to the other, but they have such a wide selection of great songs which can be mixed up.

Thankfully, this routine was broken when Kevin asked a member of the audience on stage to hold up a lyric cheat sheet for him for a song he’s not too familiar with. This is quite a usual Broken Social Scene tradition by the way. The last guy at HMV Forum, Angus, was quite the lively chap who danced around on stage by himself even getting close to Lisa. The guy this evening was really nervous but did a pretty ok job on stage holding the lyric sheet up and dancing with Kevin Drew.

Oh, the song they played was Churches Under The Stairs which is from Broken Social Scene Presents: Brendan Canning. Despite the slight distraction on stage, the song was pretty good. I never got the chance to listen to any of the Broken Social Scene Presents series but will now do so after hearing this song.

This was followed by another rarely played song, Hotel. The surprises were slowly starting to creep back in.

The biggest surprise for the evening was something I never thought would happen. They actually played Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl, a song which is really brilliant but one which they didn’t play in the last two gigs. This led me to think that Lisa just doesn’t like singing the song but it turned out pretty ok. Not as great as I hoped it would be but it was nice to finally see them perform Anthems on stage. For this song, they had a special guest, Johnny Marr’s son (The Cribs), was up on stage helping out with the guitars.

In typical fashion, they closed out the evening with Meet Me In The Basement which is a jam song and just lovely to close a show with. I was a bit wary of this being it but with Kevin saying Good night and Thank You several times and the time being close to 11pm (the curfew), I was convinced this was it.

Broken Social Scene came back on stage to play more songs starting with a slow and sweet one, Looks Just Like The Sun followed by KC Accidental and eventually closing the evening for real with Major Label Debut.

This evening was special due to a number of reasons. The co-headlining band, Tortoise, was quite mind-blowing. The surprises with the first and last song mixed things up a bit. And most of all, they played Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl, one of my favourite songs from them.

If they play Almost Crimes the next time I see them, I’d be all set. Yes, I am seeing them again if they come around London. There’s a part of me who is hoping that my This Movie Is Broken story would eventually happen and I’d want Broken Social Scene to be a part of that.

This marked the 5th time I saw Foals live and the 3rd time headlining a show. Second time this year.

This was part of their tour for their new album, Total Life Forever, which is absolutely brilliant by the way. The other two times were when they supported Bloc Party and Blur whom you may have heard of at some point in your life.

Brixton Academy was the venue this time and as it was Foals, I expected one hell of an evening which is exactly what I got.

When I arrived, the first support band was already starting. I didn’t catch their name at all and didn’t bother real since they didn’t catch my interest.

Second support for the evening was Crystal Fighters which to be clear, is different from Crystal Castles but just a few notches down the scale when it comes to insanity and intensity.

I’ve seen their name thrown around online but I never tried listening to them. I like to be surprised by support bands now. Their set was a bit of a disappointment though for one not familiar with their music. It was too crazy and you could hardly understand what was going on stage. It wasn’t terrible though, just a bit of a mess.

I’m listening to their music now on MySpace and it is very much cleaner and you can really appreciate their music this way so I am giving them another chance. Pretty sure they could only get better live.

And then it was time for Foals yet again. Foals at The Roundhouse for the iTunes festival was the best Foals gig I’ve ever been to and set a bar for this one. Considering this was an album tour and not a co-headlining show as iTunes (performed with Two Door Cinema Club), I had huge expectations for this one.

The first few songs were good but lacked the extra intensity normally expected in their shows. Then they played Cassius and things just got better from that point on.

Here’s the full setlist.

• Blue Blood
• Olympic Airways
• Total Life Forever
• Cassius
• Balloons
• Miami
• What Remains
• After Glow
• 2 Trees
• Spanish Sahara
• Red Socks Pugie
• Electric Bloom
• The French Open (encore)
• Hummer (encore)
• Two Steps, Twice (encore)

The new songs are starting to sound more and more polished live and where simply great. I’m out of words on how to describe the old songs as they were just perfect and everyone in the crowd went absolutely crazy for them.

The encore of The French Open, Hummer, and Two Steps, Twice was just incredible. It was an excellent way to end the fun-filled night on a high.

The atmosphere for this show was also quite brilliant despite the size of the venue being much bigger than Heaven and The Roundhouse which were the two other headlining shows I’ve seen them perform. Of course, Brixton is much smaller compared to London Olympia with Bloc Party and Hyde Park with Blur but they were only supporting a bigger band back then.

All in all, I would have to say this was the best Foals gig I’ve ever been too. Of course, I can’t wait to see them again.

Foals is a band I doubt I’ll ever tire of watching ever especially without Bloc Party around. The intensity of their shows is simply astounding. The guitar riffs, drum beats, and the math which goes into each song will keep me hooked for years to come.