Deafheaven
Fillmore Theater
April 21, 2025
Photos by Raymond Ahner.
“It feels good to be home,” Deafheaven frontman George Clark told the sold-out audience at the Fillmore on Monday night.
The evening was a triumphant homecoming for a band that was founded just a few blocks away in a tiny Lower Haight apartment by Clarke and guitarist Kerry McCoy in 2010. Fresh off the release of their latest opus, Lonely People With Power, Deafheaven surged through an 11-song set that consisted mostly of the new record, along with a few fan favorites. The group wasted no time in getting going, thrashing through the opening speedster “Doberman.”
The band’s sound is equal parts venomous black metal and rhapsodic shoegaze, and it’s that combination of brutality and beauty that makes the group so captivating on stage. This dark/light dynamic was on full display during the third song, “Brought to the Water,” from 2015’s New Bermuda. Beginning with a vicious blast beat from drummer Daniel Tracy, the song eventually veered into a clean-toned breakdown full of shimmering guitar before kicking the distortion back in.
Next up was the dreamy “The Garden Route,” which featured plenty of melodic bass playing from Chris Johnson. The only moment of melodic singing came next during the opening verse of “Heathen,” a showcase for Clarke’s powerhouse vocals. Effortlessly shifting between clean and harsh vocals, the Deafheaven frontman commanded the stage like a seasoned pro.
Another highlight came in the form of the blistering “Revelator,” arguably the harshest song on the new album. The piece featured some of Tracy’s most incredible drum work between spiraling twin guitar lines from McCoy and Shiv Mehra, upping the ante with each fill.
Instead of putting the traditional closing song and fan favorite “Dream House” at the end, the band moved it up slightly to the penultimate song. Clarke, ever the showman, stepped into the sold-out crowd and let them belt the song’s final refrain into the microphone.
Finally, Deafheaven closed the evening with the towering epic “Winona.” Like so many of the band’s best songs, it moves between serene shoegaze and sinister black metal before a brutally epic climax. As the decaying sounds of distortion and feedback rang out from the PA, the band walked off-stage, another triumphant show in the books.
Now a seasoned metal band, Deafheaven have come a long way from those early beginnings in 2010, and Tuesday night’s performance demonstrated at they’re going anywhere anytime soon.
Gatecreeper opened the proceedings with a hard-hitting set of crushing death metal. While the up-and-coming group hails from Arizona, the band has plenty of North European influences as well, tempering their savage death metal with lots of dark guitar melodies.
The band’s set mainly consisted of songs from 2024’s excellent Dark Superstition record, with the savage “A Chilling Aura” starting the proceedings off nicely.
Between hyper-speed death metal and melodic twin guitar interplay of Eric Wager and Israel Garza, there was plenty to like. Frontman Chase Mason demonstrated impressive vocal stamina, delivering a powerhouse performance incorporating guttural death metal growls and more mid-toned harsh vocals.
It’s easy to see why the band has been winning over metal fans in recent years, and don’t be surprised to see them headlining their own tour at the Fillmore at some point.
Deafheaven setlist:
Doberman | Magnolia | Brought to the Water | The Garden Route | Heathen | Amethyst | Worthless Animal | Incidental II | Revelator | Dream House | Winona
Gatecreeper setlist:
A Chilling Aura | Caught in the Treads | Dead Star | Ruthless | The Black Curtain | Patriarchal Grip | From the Ashes | Rusted Gold | Starved | Sick of Being Sober | Flesh Habit | Mistaken For Dead | Flamethrower
