Deftones at First Ave

Wow. Just wow. If you ever have a chance to catch a band that's used to playing in arenas and at outdoor festivals in a venue the size of First Ave, I heartily recommend doing it. I've never heard a heavy, incredibly loud band sound so GOOD. I saw Soundgarden three or four times in their heyday, and let me tell you, they sucked live. I remember Metallica being impressive, but it was at Lollapalooza, so it's pretty hard to judge sound. I distinctly remember disliking Ministry live.

But Deftones were so self-assured and solid. I had heard mixed things about them live, but I thought Chino Moreno was in great voice, hitting all the high notes, even on throat-wreckers like "Digital Bath" from White Pony. They covered a lot of ground, playing songs from every album they've released (I'm pretty sure--I'm not too familiar with Adrenaline), although the highlights were "My Own Summer (Shove It)," "Knife Prty," and "Xerces."

Here's where I get all meta on your ass: Even if you're not a fan of loud, heavy, aggressive music, I think checking out Deftones, especially live, is worth your time. I think that seeing anyone who's really good at something do it in person is worth your time: a deft surgeon in the operating room, a tennis player like Roger Federer playing in a final, a classical pianist performing Bach's "Well-Tempered Klavier," Defontes absolutely destroying the mainroom at First Ave. Because here's the thing: seeing people who have mastered a discipline, performing at the height of their abilities, is just about the most beautiful thing I can imagine, not to mention just about the only thing worth something in this here life.

I'm not a believer in the afterlife, so I think we need to make the most of what we've got right now.

This is something Kevin McHale and the rest of the Timberwolves management should keep in mind in the future. Goddamnit. I can't believe we didn't get Iverson.

I mean, actually, I can, which is what makes it all the worse. I'd been trying to come up with the right real world analogy for how it made me feel when I read the news that A.I. had gone to Denver, and I finally came up with it last night.

You're in a relationship, and it was good for a while, but now it's getting on six months or so and things aren't going great. You have moments where you think you've got to get out and then moments when you think it might work out. So you plan a vacation with your S.O., but you're not kidding yourself--you know it probably won't fix anything deep down, but it's going to be fun and maybe you can forget about the problems for a while. But then in the lead-up to the vacation you begin to invest it with way more significance than it should have, maybe just subconsciously. And then two days before you're supposed to go, you have to cancel because of some entirely stupid extenuating circumstances. But now you suddenly feel EVEN WORSE than you did before you planned the vacation because the failure of the vacation to come to fruition is just another example of what an abject failure the entire relationship is, and, as a matter of fact, the vacation's cancellation comes to represent the entire endeavor's absolute crappiness.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2006-07 Minnesota Timberwolves. Kevin: please, just go. I'll hold the door.