Concert Review – Deafheaven @The Catalyst 10/03/25 90.5 KSJS
By, Matthew Tiger Gutierrez
What a way to end my week heading back home to Santa Cruz to see one of my favorite bands of recent years, Deafheaven, at The Catalyst for their 2025 tour. In May of this year, they dropped their newest album, Lonely People With Power. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement.
The first opener of the show we had the pleasure of listening to is I Promised The Word witch prior to this show I had no idea about but let me tell you I may have changed my whole perspective on life after listening to this sound that could be described in so many ways such as a 2000s post hardcore, screamo, post punk and metalcore but for simplicity purposes ill call them nothing less than splendid, their set was so insane i had to purchase a t-shirt just had to.
Another band I honestly had never listened too was the second opener Harms Way who i can just imagine lifting heavy too possibly going for a personal record while well over the recommended amount of caffeine you should drink there sound is much more recognizable to me as there this metalcore, hardcore, and powerviolence band and the way they came on stage is just memorizing, the lights go off as you see nothing but there logo and after letting that shimmer for a minute you see all the members on stage without their lead vocalist they as soon as the vocalist came into visualization from the back stage and picked up the mic from the floor i knew someone was gonna get a shoe to the face by some hardbody mosher in the pit.
Now, the moment I had been waiting for, and you have possibly been reading for, Deafheaven. While I had only recently gotten into Deafheaven as of last year because of my awesome government teacher, their melodic black metal, some see as black gauze, resonated with me to another level with songs such as dream house, irresistible, doberman, and much, much more.
And with much anticipation, we saw the banner change from Harms Way into Deafheavens logo, and soon the show I had been oh so hyped up to see began, and boy, it did not disappoint. They opened with a song from their new album Lonely People With Power called Doberman, one of my favorites, and the energy in the room instantly shifted; it felt as if everyone had started moving and would not stop until they dropped.
The second song, another banger of their new album Magnolia, continues the chaos that ensued after they opened with Doberman, and not once had the energy dropped. The pit was going, I went with it two two-stepped around, helped someone who fell and got in the front middle area near the stage, which gave me the best view of the band as they shredded.
As they played their fourth song the title track of their Sunbather album a song that made me fall in love with the band I had realized how many other people were gathered here that were just so in love with the music as much as I was some even singing along and singing along to black metal vocals which is not a simple task but it meant so much to me seeing all these people just thriving off the lead vocalist Geprge Clarke’s raw unfiltered energy and spewing it back out by singing, moshing or even headbanging.
After some time, I believe there 7th song in the set list. Amethyst the band would put their instruments down and head backstage, but I knew it wasn’t over, it couldn’t be over, they hadn’t played key songs of their newest album, such as Revolator or Winona, not even one of their most renowned songs off of Sunbather, Dream House? Soon the crowd would start shouting for the band, even screeching for them to come back out and play after letting that marinate; they would come back out to continue into the last songs, which just so happened to be Revolator then Dream House then lastly Winona.
As the band ended the show, tossing their pics and the drummer tossing the sticks, I had gotten in just the right area to be able to catch a stick from the drummer, an item I will remember this night by, and this amazon experience i had got to be a part of. To anyone who hasnt given Deafheaven a listen id strongly recommend them, and if you get the chance to see them live, as i did, that is a golden opportunity to have an amazing night.
This blog definitely makes me interested in listening to deafheaven with how descriptive the writer I could almost feel some of the energy from the show. Also I think it was awesome Matthew to have caught one of the drum sticks.
Getting into a black metal band because of a government teacher is insane; that needs to happen to me someday. The pit also sounded really fun, definitely going to give these guys a listen.
The way you hyped up the opener by describing their sound as “splendid” was an amazing way to inculpate the feeling of the band, and the knowledge of, and respect for Deafhevan’s artistry was nothing short of impressive
I really love how you described your experience listening to the opener I Promised The Word, they sound really cool. It sounds like you had a lot of fun watching Deathheaven perform! I really got a sense of their performance. It’s so funny that your government teacher put you on! I would love to know more about that story.