Location: Vienna (Wien) / Simm City / Austria
Date: Monday, 02.12.2019
This December isn’t just packed with the seizure-inducing, vomit-triggering strains of Last Christmas, Silent Night, and New Year’s Kiss — thankfully, it’s also full of events tailor-made for the true music connoisseur. Kicking off the festive month on just the right note was Canadian wizard Devin Townsend, who stopped closest to us during his European tour supporting the current record Empath, playing a sold-out Simm City in Vienna.
Devin brought London prog outfit Haken along for the ride, still in the thick of pushing last year’s album Vector. They opened their set with its lead single Puzzle Box, greeting the packed Simm City crowd to — much to my surprise — an absolutely thunderous reception right from the off. In their roughly forty-five-minute set the Brits focused mainly on their last two albums, venturing further back only once with their “biggest hit” Cockroach King, from 2013’s The Mountain. Haken unquestionably proved they are masters of their instruments, and musically they delivered a flawless performance. The problem with Haken lies elsewhere, though: with precious few exceptions they come across as completely soulless and painfully generic. You can hear near-carbon-copy moments lifted from Meshuggah, Dream Theater, and Queen, but what made it even more of an ordeal was Ross Jennings’ dreadful vocal performance — clearly a vocalist you either love or hate. The Vienna crowd seemed to lap it up, but Ross’s quasi-falsettos (which sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks), his vocoder inserts, and the auto-tuned vocals put my ears through the wringer. Haken made an even worse impression with their closing AOR/pop ditty 1985, during which keyboardist Diego Tejeida actually pranced onto the stage with a keytar. That says it all.
Haken setlist: Puzzle Box, A Cell Divides, Earthrise, Nil By Mouth, Cockroach King, 1985
Fortunately, the stage was quickly turned around for the brilliant Canadian musical madman Devin Townsend, who is going through a (re)newed renaissance. This spring he released the hugely successful studio album Empath, recorded with an almost obscenely impressive lineup that includes Morgan Agren, Steve Vai, Mike Keneally, Anup Sastry, and Samus Paulicelli. Even better for Devin, he managed to bring most of those names along on his current European tour. Despite the freeze gripping the Austrian capital, Devin conjured up a proper Caribbean-Hawaiian atmosphere right from the start. During the stage changeover, keyboardist Diego (on loan from Haken, no less) had been mixing cocktails in coconut cups, and the band strode onstage decked out in Hawaiian shirts — last among them, to thunderous cheers and applause, the one and only Devin Townsend. Devin was backed this time by a nine-piece outfit: Morgan on drums, Mike Keneally on guitar, Markus Reuter on touch guitar, Nathan Navarro on bass, Diego on keys, Che Aimee Dorval on vocals, and on top of all that a three-piece female choir that gave the eyes a very welcome rest.
Devin placed heavy emphasis on the new album, with opener Borderlands followed by Evermore, then Infinity classic War and back to Empath with Sprite. A somewhat more serious stretch followed as the band shed their Hawaiian shirts, and Devin and Morgan locked into a killer jam that rolled into the Ki-era hypnosis of Coast. That one came off brilliantly live, all the more so for the incredible solo exchanges between Devin and Mike. The latter was a genuine positive surprise — unbelievable energy at 57 years old, and you could plainly see how much he was loving every second of it. When someone who has worked with the likes of Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and even Frank Zappa is absolutely beaming onstage, it says a lot about the caliber of Townsend as a musician. Through the Ki detour of Gato, Heaven’s End, and Ain’t Never Gonna Win it was the charming Che who shone brightest with her angelic soul voice, while Devin even slipped in a few inhuman shrieks during Coast that brought back the best days of Strapping Young Lad — all the more so during a divine performance of Deadhead that left hairs standing and skin crawling.
Devin wouldn’t be Devin without the comedy interludes that had the whole room in stitches. He pulled on a fan’s t-shirt reading “Devin Fucking Townsend” and commented that it smelled like yak balls; during Lucky Animals he went full Spinal Tap, calling for a mosh pit from one end of the venue to the other in his best macho metalhead pose; and during the Disney-esque Why? he pranced around the stage in a tutu skirt. After the chaotic masterpiece Genesis came a change of pace — a tender acoustic rendition of Spirits Will Collide, beautifully supported by the female choir, and then an all-too-soon end to the main set. The encore didn’t keep us waiting long, and in it — entirely in keeping with an evening charged with positive energy — Devin and company surprised everyone with The Trammps’ disco anthem Disco Inferno. Mike Keneally then got a moment to stretch out with a Frank Zappa arrangement of The Black Page #1, before Devin said his Vienna goodbye in the expected but no less spectacular fashion with the iron Kingdom. After everything seen and heard, it’s crystal clear: Devin is and remains one of the greatest musical figures of our time.
Devin Townsend setlist: Borderlands, Evermore, War, Sprite, Coast, Gato, Heaven’s End, Ain’t Never Gonna Win, Deadhead, Why?, Lucky Animals, Castaway, Genesis, Spirits Will Collide, Disco Inferno, The Black Page #1, Kingdom
Text: Rok Klemše
Photos: Sebastijan Videc
Haken
Devin Townsend
