Deftones Announce March Tour Dates in Texas, SXSW Shows Rumored

Take a look at this list of recently announced Deftones tour dates and let me know if you think anything seems a bit odd:

03/05 Costa Mesa, CA – Musink Festival
03/16 Mission, TX – Never Say Never Festival
03/19 San Antonio, TX – Lonestar Events Center
03/20 Dallas, TX – Southside Ballroom
03/22 Houston, TX – Revention Music Center
03/24 Lubbock, TX – Lonestar Pavilion

For one, Deftones aren’t from Texas, so why these shows with no other dates nearby surrounding them, and why now?

But even if we accept that Deftones *might* make the trip to the Lonestar State just to play the Never Say Never Festival and pad it with a few extra shows while they’re there… why TWO days off on March 17th and 18th?

I’d be shocked if they don’t announce a SXSW show (or two) some time very soon. The music portion of the festival runs from March 15th through 20th, and with a new album on the way this year the band’s got all the reason in the world to generate some buzz with a high-profile appearance like this. There is also precedent: while I’m not aware of any Deftones shows at SXSW in the past (although it’s certainly possible they played the festival back in the band’s early days), Crosses — one of Chino’s other bands — played SXSW as recently as 2014. Not that one thing can be linked definitively to the other, but at least a member of the band is familiar with the festival.  I suppose it’s also possible that Crosses or Team Sleep are planning a SXSW show, and the rest of the members of Deftones will just hang out in Austin for two days to party… but yeah, I kinda doubt it.

MetalSucks will be announcing our own SXSW showcase — the sixth annual South by South Death — very, very soon! We don’t have the Deftones, I promise, but we do have six other very excellent bands for ya. Stay tuned.