Eighteen years. That’s how long Deftones fans waited to hear “Melanie” played live — and on Saturday night, it finally happened.

Deep into their headlining set at their own Día De Los Deftones festival at Petco Park in San Diego, the band launched into “Melanie,” an unreleased track from Eros, the unfinished Deftones album shelved after bassist Chi Cheng was left in a coma by a car crash in 2008. It was the first time the song had been played live since 2008.

Eros has been a fan holy grail for nearly two decades — and it leaked this summer, a year after frontman Chino Moreno said in a 2025 fan Q&A that the album would never come out, because it would mean “going back to that period and resurrecting unfinished things” rather than focusing on new ideas.

After the song ended, Moreno had the perfect line for the moment. “This song doesn’t exist,” he told the crowd.

The festival bill also featured Converge, AFI, The Neighbourhood, Lip Critic, Bktherula, Jehnny Beth, Ladrones and LustSickPuppy. Deftones played a 19-song main set — “Back to School,” “My Own Summer,” “Diamond Eyes,” “Change (In the House of Flies)” and “Around the Fur” among them — plus a two-song encore of “Cherry Waves” and “Hexagram.”

Source: Stereogum

Photo: Deftones live at Pukkelpop 2009. (Wikimedia Commons)