For most aspiring bands, playing a backyard show is a rite of passage. Not so for Deftones in the below video. Instead, the Sacramento, CA natives already had two gold records under their belt and were well on their way to becoming alternative metal stars by the time this special intimate set took place.
Per the video’s uploader, that concert was the grand prize of a ‘Band In Your Backyard’ contest ran by Bay Area radio station Live 105, with the show taking place in the Willow Glen suburb of San Jose, CA back in the year 2000. Then 33-year-old Jeff Sanchez won that contest, and invited roughly 200 fans to attend the event which was held for free in his backyard.
That 40-minute set took place on the back of the June 2000 release of the group’s third opus “White Pony“, which went gold in September of that year, and later platinum in July of 2002. This newly unearthed footage of the unconventional performance recently caused a bit of a stir among the Deftones fan community, as one Sanchez’s children uploaded mid last month.
The scrappy concert saw Moreno ascend to the roof of the Sanchez household at one point, partaking in a joint before launching into a cover of Weezer‘s “Say Ain’t So“. Later he indulged in a cautionary freestyle after the band were pelted by concertgoers with fruit (skip to 44:44 in for that.)
Unfortunately, not all of the entire performance is included in the video footage, as some of was errantly taped over in the middle, but aside from that, numerous songs were still captured, including Engine No. 9“, “Back To School (Mini Maggit)” and more.
A local newspaper article covering the concert at the time has been shared online via Archive.org. Meanwhile, ‘TommySanz’, who uploaded the footage, shared:
“My dad won a radio show sweepstakes, Live105, for the Deftones to perform in our backyard.
Someone also filmed over a portion of it about halfway through, but it’s picked back up.
No, I did not film it, and I don’t know who did.
Filmed on Mini DV tape and then put on a VHS tape, then digitized it using an Elgato Video Capture Card.
Filmed in San Jose, CA”
