Author: Rok Klemše
Location: Explosiv / Graz / Austria
Concert date: 16.08.2017
Devin Townsend Project is back in Europe, and there’s no reason to skip their show when they’re playing relatively close to Slovenia. This time they hit up Graz’s Explosiv club. These shows were squeezed in between summer festival slots and were basically an extension of the Transcendence tour, which sadly skipped Slovenia. So quite a few Slovenians made the trip to Graz, and there was plenty to see and hear.
As has become the custom, we once again had to endure a relatively unlistenable opening act. The “might as well not be listening” slot went to Norway’s Fight the Fight this time. We’re used to Norway mostly giving us black metal, progressive metal and the odd off-the-wall avant-garde act, but tonight’s menu was something completely different and a whole lot worse. Fight the Fight describe themselves as a mix of metal, punk and emo core, and live that mix was seriously hard to swallow. The start was still kind of promising, as singer Lars Vegas (a band with a dumb name obviously needs a singer with a dumb nickname) surprised with some solid screaming, but he quickly ruined the good impression with whiny “teen angst” choruses. You can’t accuse the guys of lacking energy, there was more than enough of it, but the mix of generic riffs, idiotic breakdowns and over-the-top stage antics just didn’t convince live. Not to mention the band’s schizophrenic image – one of the guitarists looked like he’d escaped from the most typical indie rock band ever, another like a lost member of Poison, and Lars Vegas (I simply had to write that name one more time) would’ve fit better in a grind band with that beastly screaming. So I waited out the end of Fight the Fight’s set outside the hall.
We last caught Devin this February at Tvornica in Zagreb, where he was presenting the then-brand-new DTP album Transcendence. This time the Canadians didn’t offer anything earth-shattering, since the song selection was almost identical to the Zagreb one, but with Devin, anything even close to routine is simply impossible. The almost packed-to-the-rafters Explosiv hit boiling point with the very first song, Rejoice, which Devin described very vividly by saying he’s from Canada and has egg drop soup in his pants. He wasn’t the only one, I haven’t been to a concert this hot in a long time. The band was in top form as always, and the sound was a pleasant surprise too: really good, clear and crystal clean, so the hairs on our necks shot up more than once during Devin’s vocal acrobatics. Townsend proved yet again that he has no equal as a frontman, holding the crowd in his fist from the very first second with his grimaces and humorous interludes, which would leave ninety percent of stand-up comics in the dust. The standouts were once again songs like Failure, Hyperdrive, the beautiful Deadhead with its dazzling vocal performance, the epic Supercrush!, the groovy march about little flying, farting ballsacks March of the Poozers, and the farewell anthem Kingdom. That wasn’t the last song, of course, because everyone left the stage except Devin, who strapped on an acoustic guitar and, as usual, served up a brilliant solo rendition of the beautiful love ballad Ih-Ah!, tossing out remarks in between about being a naughty princess spraying magic dust over men’s genitals. Ah, Devin. The real finale came with the ten-minute epic Higher, and a good hour went by in a flash. The guys could easily have played another song or two, but this time that just had to be enough. Still, Devin Townsend Project give you a lot of music for little money. See you in Plovdiv Plovdev!
Setlist
DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT:
1. Rejoice
2. Night
3. Stormbending
4. Failure
5. Hyperdrive
6. Where We Belong
7. Deadhead
8. Ziltoid Goes Home
9. Supercrush
10. March of the Poozers
11. Kingdom
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12. Ih-Ah (acoustic, Devin solo)
13. Higher
Photo gallery
