Celebrating the future, present and past: Deftones live in London

Deftones were originally supposed to play this gig in November, but pulled their whole European tour following the terrorist attacks in Paris. The move was completely understandable - the band were due to play The Bataclan the following day and were actually in the building before the attacks began.

The ensuing delay has unsurprisingly resulted in a pent-up sense of approaching chaos that engulfs Wembley immediately as frontman Chino Moreno, sporting a bleached blonde crop, takes to the stage.

Two months ago, the Sacramento five-piece released Gore, their eighth album and a stadium-sized work richly dense in fragile sensuality and atmospheric melancholy with flashes of intense brutality. But any anticipation for hearing the new material is dampened by the second whiff hanging heavy on the air: nostalgia.

Tonight's set is crafted to be as much a celebration of the band's roots as it is their present and future. Yet it’s all a bit odd that armed with a Gore's worth of innovative and progressive metal, the album most heavily represented tonight is their second, Around the Fur. The crowd don’t seem bothered though. From the nu metal crunch of rarely aired "MX" and even lesser played "Rickets" to the biggest anthem in their arsenal, "My Own Summer (Shove It)", three quarters of Wembley's standing space form one homogenous sweating, bouncing lump as Moreno barks out skin-flaying shrieks that shouldn't be possible for human lungs.

The truly jaw dropping moments in the set however stem from their ground-breaking White Pony material onwards. There is some logic behind that 'Radiohead of metal' tag: like Thom and co, Deftones have challenged and experimented with their art. As a result, the eerie, otherworldly "Digital Bath", simmering "Rosemary" and seductive yet chilling "You've Seen the Butcher" can't be defined by mere genre categorisation.

The evening is too light on material from Gore but the band choose well in the the heady thundering of "Prayers/ Triangles" and expansive sweep of "Rubicon"'s chorus ("The more we build, the crowd goes wild... face the lights, free yourself and writhe in them"). Moreno could be singing equally as much about this glorious moment or the limitless creativity of Deftones' future.