By the end of “Passenger,” the second song Deftones played last night at Vancouver’s sold out Commodore Ballroom, it had already become apparent this was far more than a run-of-the-mill rock concert.

Singer Chino Moreno had barely dragged himself back onto the stage from out of the crowd before he was blind-sided by a suit jacket thrown from the audience.

“Might be a little snug,” smiled Moreno, sizing up his new acquisition, “but thank you.”

An airborne pair of sneakers followed a minute later, par for the course during one of the wildest and most exciting evenings of live music to happen in Vancouver this year.

Unlike virtually all of their alt-rock peers from the 1990s, Deftones have unquestionably become better with age. Confident enough to unveil two of their biggest hits, “Be Quiet And Drive” and “My Own Summer,” as the third and fourth songs of the night, this band elegantly walked the tightrope between promoting their critically acclaimed present and embracing their flawless back catalogue.

Not that there’s a radical difference between albums one and seven (the soon-to-be released “Kou No Yokan”). Deftones’ formula has always been on the experimental side of heavy metal, mixing Moreno’s three vocal styles – dreamy, screamy and the occasional rap – with a focus on fuzz and groove over pristine technique. Guitarist Stephen Carpenter refuses to play the axe hero, dismissing solos entirely in favour of a series of distorted riffs and tones.

The hits, old and new, kept coming. “Diamond Eyes” displayed a heaviness not immediately apparent on its recorded version. “Rocket Skates,” a song where heaviness has never been in question, provoked the first mass sing-a-long of the night with its screamed chorus, “Guns! Razors! Knives! Wooooo!”

“Here’s a new one,” smiled Moreno, before launching into instant classic “Tempest.” Four minutes later, as its slow build exploded into life, the Commodore was nodding as one, every head probably wondering why a band this terrific wasn’t playing at the hockey arena down the road. Too weird for rock radio and too heavy for the indie pop airwaves, Deftones are stuck creating great music and intense, magical evenings.

“Now something old,” Moreno announced at the song’s end, launching into the grinding “Do You Believe” and “Engine No. 9,” a rap-metal favourite from the band’s distant past that provoked the night’s biggest outbreak of bouncing.

With the entire band either approaching or the wrong side of 40, they’d perhaps be forgiven for mellowing with age. No such thing. Moreno was back in the crowd again during an encore of “Bored,” while bassist Sergio Vega careened around the stage lost in the music.

The eventual finale, a brutal rendition of “7 Words”, demonstrated a band that, even with its hard-earned skills of subtlety, can still turn it up to 11 when it wants to.

Over two decades has passed since Deftones first emerged from Northern California and there still isn’t another rock band like them anywhere in the world. There are hundreds of ringing ears and sore necks around the Lower Mainland that can testify to that Monday.