Deftones played “Melanie” during their headlining set at Dia de los Deftones festival in San Diego on November 7th, marking the first time in 18 years the band has performed the track live, according to a fan video of the show.
The performance took place midway through the band’s set at Petco Park. “Melanie” is from the Eros album and had not been performed live since 2008, when the band played it twice.
Fans watching the show expressed their excitement about the surprise performance. One fan commented: “NO WAYYYY!!!! DUDE I wish I was there. That’s insane. I love them so much. That’s actually crazy they played anything from Eros!”
Another fan added: “I was not expecting them to do another eros song live but I’m so glad they did.”
A third fan wrote: “I f*cking knew it! I KNEW they’d pull a surprise song! And what a treat to get Melanie.”
The band’s Dia de los Deftones festival showcased Deftones as the headline act for the event.
The shelved Eros album has a complicated history. Deftones began writing music for the record in May 2007, only seven months after their 2006 album Saturday Night Wrist was released. The band first played “Melanie” on September 18, 2008, at Spaceland in Los Angeles, and performed it once more the following day.
The album’s development was disrupted by tragedy. On November 3, 2008, bassist Chi Cheng was involved in a serious car accident in Santa Clara, California. In July 2009, Deftones announced they had indefinitely shelved Eros in favor of work on a new album written with new bassist Vega. Cheng passed away in 2013, and Eros has remained unreleased to this day.
Over the years, only one official track from the album has been released. In 2014, on the one-year anniversary of Cheng’s death, singer Chino Moreno shared a studio version of “Smile”. Deftones previously performed another Eros song, “Smile,” at their Dia De Los Deftones festival in 2019. In 2025, frontman Chino Moreno revealed that the album “most likely will never see the light of day”.
The full Eros album was unofficially leaked in June 2026, containing 11 songs including “Destiny,” “Brenda,” “Melanie,” “Smile,” “Margot,” “Candy,” “Sable,” “Electra,” “Trempest,” “Diamond” and “Briana”. The band’s decision to perform “Melanie” at Dia de los Deftones comes months after this leak made the unreleased material more widely available.
