Post your reviews, photos or videos of Dev's shows here! All tour dates included
#324155 by Prezidentman
Tue Apr 14, 2015 2:24 pm
Well, this was an extraordinary show and most likely the best Devin show I've been to and that includes the Retinal Circus! Amazing venue, sound, set, band, everything. What a great night and what an achievement this has to be for the band. Also, probably one of Devin's best vocal performances ever...how he managed to pull off the vocals for some of those songs later in the set after all these years was just unreal. Thank God the whole thing was recorded! Hopefully, this will lead to new opportunities for the band. They deserve it.
PS>Found it odd that there were sections with a bunch of empty seats.
#324157 by jonathanhoey
Wed Apr 15, 2015 6:15 am
A lot of the seats at the Royal Albert Hall are privately owned and don't go on sale to the general public.

Apart from those, the place was packed. Some empty seats among the public seating areas as you'd expect (there'll always be people who buy tickets and can't go on the day) but the Royal Albert Hall put the number at 5,000 on their own blog: http://life.royalalberthall.com/2015/04/14/metal-moshing-and-teddy-cannons-devin-townsend-rocks-the-royal-albert-hall/
#324162 by SilenceHarmsYourEars
Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:30 am
Here is my, I'm confident, well-balanced, constructive critical, and fairly detailed view of the show. I think Devin and the Band will appreciate this:

It was a good show and the overall performance was quite entertaining and pretty spectacular visually - probably one of the largest and most outlandish of DTP shows. The band played very well and Devin managed to keep a lid on the talking for most of it, although there was some slippage into juvenile attributes unfortunately.

It was however good to see that for once - out of virtually all the shows I've been to of his, he has started to finally put a stop to technical glitches holding things up / delaying or cutting out mid song. The main issues this time instead were the sound production - not totally bad, but the least desirable part of all was the CHOICE OF SETLIST (thanks fans!). I'll speak about those 2 main issues I had with the show that stopped it being super great, as opposed to just good to-very good.

SOUND ISSUES:

For the entire first half, the rythm guitars were highly burried - so much so that it was affecting a lot of audience participation I felt. It just didn't "sound" like a heavy concert should, save for the lead work that stuck out reasonably enough, as it always does at live events. And this isn't just my thoughts on the matter - other people, skilled musicians I had with me agreed. It was so burried that I suspect maybe Devin was actually deliberately going for that sound somehow, or perhaps something went wrong but - whatever it was, it didn't sound right or metal enough. So the first half whilst good and most spectacular musically, was often a bit burried beneath the usual (typical metal band sound) avalanche of bass and drums (as per a lot of metal/rock concerts).

Anyway, this was somewhat corrected and improved for the 2nd half - no doubt in part due to the fact I spoke to some of the guys on the boards and instructed them to inform the sound men of the issue, whereby it improved for the 2nd half. And it seemed as if they turned it up further towards the end - at which point by some of the last half dozen tracks, it was at a fairly acceptable, good level. And it sounded bloody good their.

The other major annoyance was that throughout a lot of it, especially the 2nd half.... the BACKING TRACKS almost VANISHED for a lot of the songs. On "Christeen" and "Supercrush!" and "Heatwave" amongst others for example, you could hear almost NOTHING of the backing tracks (which for huge tracks like Heatwave make up a lot of the entire essence!) and for ones like Supercrush.... almost total lack of Annekes vocals - bad move there. Still fun tracks but - not the quality you'd expect of Devin or The Royal Albert. Yet for some reason, backing tracks came out fine for other tracks like "Night" from memory so - I don't know what they were doing.


SETLIST ISSUES:

The choice of Setlist was in my view (and that of others) not that great, and perhaps the least great aspect of the show. So the idea of letting the majority fans choose the setlist for the 2nd half was a poor idea in my view - don't do that again is my thought DTP! Even Devin himself sounded a bit *nervously surprised* when he announced the fans choice of tracks for ones like "Funeral" - and not just because they were tracks he hadn't played for a while, but I'm fairly sure because he thought it was not an ideal or close to ideal setlist himself by his mild nervousness.

In short - , for the 2nd half their were far too many of the light/airy/poppy tracks, and then it went worse (from a setlist perspective) into all the quietest tracks off Ocean Machine... and had 3 or 4 of them in a sodding row. Not a good idea! 1 at most would have been sufficient.

You see... For a 2hour + set, there are countless great tracks that could have been done and sounded incredible in that venue with great sound done right - and instead he spent probably 40+ mins playing some of the corniest / quietest / slowests songs based around themes about death and depression and misery. Wonderful. What about tracks like... Mental Tan/Gaia. What about Sunshine and happiness. What about Triumph. What about Resolve! What about Universe in a Ball, What about sodding Woah No! or Socialisation or Ki for example. Those would have sounded immense - and seeing as they are rarely ever played it would have been the perfect venue. And other people agreed with me. I also think for the first half, he only needed to do half a dozen of the best Z2 tracks - not the entire album, which would have provided more time to perform best tracks from his entire catalogue.

Having said all that, that 2nd half and especially those last half dozen tracks where the rythm guitars really stood out properly, were probably some of the best performances you'll ever see of those particular tracks - and not just the guitars but the vocal performance and all. Deadhead, Funeral, Bastard & The Death of Music all probably get a 9.5/10 in that regard.

Devin did a little speech about how they all put in so much work and did a lot of practice - no doubt true... but get this.... I don't think the band need any more song practice as Musicians (maybe Devin himself but, not the band)....... RYAN VAN POODEROYN IS A SODDING ROBOT - LITERALLY. And they were all tight musicians. But the sound itself - almost every time I've been to see DTP over 3-4 years, there has been some sound issue or other. GETTING THE SODDING SOUND / MIX RIGHT, now that DOES *INDEED NEED A FAIR DEAL OF PRACTICE*. Not much the musicians.

So I'd like to see him back there or somewhere similar ASAP... and this time getting it much more right *SOUND-WISE*! So overall Good show, here's some ratings:

Sound Quality: 7.3 or 7.9/10 on Average.....
Which increased to 8.9/10 best as Rythm guitars improved in second half, and sounded good on occasional songs where Backing Tracks weren't burried.

Choice of Setlist (Least Best Part): 7.0 or 7.8/10 tops.

Visuals/Atmosphere: 9.5/10 (best DTP show from this aspect for sure)

Band Performance/Musicianship: 9.5/10

Amongst his somewhat decreased and improved blabber, Devin did make one crucial and vital comment:

"From the bottom of my heart at the hallowed halls of the Royal Albert, I think we are the first act officially to have a farting ball-bag shriek across the stage."
Last edited by SilenceHarmsYourEars on Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:52 am, edited 5 times in total.
#324163 by SilenceHarmsYourEars
Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:42 am
Oh yes, forgot to add some pictures I took. Unfortunately took them in the wrong size but, you get the idea!

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As you can see, contrary to impressions of previous comments - the place was absolutely packed to about 98% full capacity, save for a few seats in 1 particular corner only not worth mentioning.
#324165 by Kong89
Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:36 pm
Yeah I found the setlist in the second set to be spectacular. Ocean Machine is one of my favourite albums and Funeral is probably my favourite Devin song, so to hear that for the first time ever as a total surprise gave me chills. Likewise with Bastard and TDOM, the atmosphere in those tracks was so intense and I think Dev really took it to the next level.

I noticed the quiet rhythm guitars during a few Z2 tracks but it didn't spoil my enjoyment. Hearing Ryan in all his glory was simply fantastic, the drums on Z2 are fierce and he absolutely nailed it.

Ultimately I don't like to niggle with what I would have changed or preferred to hear. Dev pulled out a truly memorable show and I'll be grinning about it for a long time to come.
#324166 by Prezidentman
Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:52 pm
Yeah, you can always wish for certain things to be different or better or whatever and everyone would like to hear different tracks performed. But the fans did chose these tracks so there you go...You can never please everybody. Speaking as a Devin fan since the Vai band days I can honestly say that IMO this was one of his best shows ever. Was is perfect? No, but damn close IMO.
#324168 by Lettuce
Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:06 pm
The best show to date, in my opinion (far superior to Retinal). The stage layout was spectacular, visuals were gorgeous, band and choir were absolutely on the ball. Hugely proud of the guys. We had some lads from ZTV fly over for the show, they were playing the poozers and Ziltoid! Here's some piccies of mine if you guys are interested-

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Mr Collis' ridiculous birthday cake

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Zillyboy Boatclub enjoying the show

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Props crew :D

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#324169 by bomb_dog
Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:49 pm
Packed? Nearly...We managed to get tickets about 2:30pm on the day of sales, and got 'restricted view', meaning we couldn't see half of the stage. We were parallel to the front-row of people standing, but in the balcony at the top on the left-hand side, There were loads of empty seats around us, and about a minute into the show I suggested we move to some of the empty seats, right on the front of the balcony, so got a better view of the whole show. As mentioned, sound wasn't very good in the first half but got much better later.

There were lots of sets of 3 here, 5 here, 2 here, 6 here, etc across the right-hand side, and lots of empty seats on the main circle/posh seats on the other side, leading to us wondering where all the people who were in the scrum for tickets were! I think 98% may be a little high, more like 92%, which is not as many as I'd expected, especially when I saw Python at the o2 earlier in the year and virtually every seat was occupied.

At least we could move seats. There was a ticket-checker/attendant nearby, but no-one else arrived to claim the seats which we'd have surrendered if required. Wonder how many touts had all these tickets but couldn't sell them on? We wondered if there had been some sort of motorway accident or traffic delays due to the quantity of empty seats we could see. Felt sorry for all the people standing at the top and those like us who gambled on 'restricted view', or couldn't get tickets at all.

Ace gig though!
#324174 by sunsetofage
Wed Apr 15, 2015 10:19 pm
Finally back home and still flashed by that show!!! "Death Of Music" live - a dream came true!!! Thank you DTP !!!
Here some links to videos I made during the concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC2q9Uyh654
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EXSewRPPqw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-B8vNRIxUs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woAghY_-gYs
#324177 by Lettuce
Thu Apr 16, 2015 3:15 am
bomb_dog, a large amount of seats are privately owned, they'd be filled for more prestigious shows like the BBC Proms, but you'll find the owners who didn't go probably didn't even get round to selling their seats for something like this show.


jonathanhoey wrote:
Lettuce wrote:Zillyboy Boatclub enjoying the show


It's even a SPAR bag! Attention to detail :D


I just had to! Represent!
#324178 by Tyroshai
Thu Apr 16, 2015 4:50 am
We originally had top tier tickets but as we got to the door a stewardess said she had 4 spare tickets for a private box (for free!) so we fucked off to it rather smugly. Hence the champagne.

We had 5 empty seats in there for starters and looking around the venue it was apparent it was a common thing. Even in the stalls and around the very top tiers in the venue there was quite a few empty seats- Fact. Since they're privately owned and whatnot it's not any sort of complaint, just an observation as we could see all round the venue except immediately above our box.

Anyhoo, it was an ace and well-executed set all-round, the song choices were great (albeit a lack of Synchestra, amongst others). The sound was good (all things considered) and the lads were brilliant, especially Ryan. The man's an absolute machine! Both the audience and atmosphere in there were electric, seriously...Buy the Bluray! This is the tenth time I've seen them over the years and this particular show blew the previous experiences out of the water. Wonder what's next for them, as you can't really top playing at RAH! Furthermore, the visual aspect to the show was perfect and really added to the experience. Thankfully there was none of the coherence issues that plagued the Retinal Circus.

9.5/10 :D

As promised, here's some pics :)
Last edited by Tyroshai on Thu Apr 16, 2015 8:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
#324179 by swervedriver
Thu Apr 16, 2015 4:58 am
I also had a ticket, but didn't get around to selling it. I like to think I was there in spirit though, and my spirit needed to sit. :)

Also, I've never been to a gig where there were no issues with the sound. Considering this was a one-off kind of show in a type of venue the DTP hardly ever play, with quite a few never-before played songs, combined with a busy stage, I think expecting perfection of the mix is a bit much. Setlist preference is personal of course, no point arguing that.

Oh, and finally, I should say this: love reading all your impressions :) Can't wait for the BluRay to see it for myself.


-EDIT: This is cool!
[youtube]zxP_kGyYq20[/youtube]
#324180 by Faffy
Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:02 am
Tyroshai wrote:We originally had top tier tickets but as we got to the door a stewardess said she had 4 spare tickets for a private box (for free!) so we fucked off to it rather smugly. Hence the champagne.

We had 5 empty seats in there for starters and looking around the venue it was apparent it was a common thing. Even in the stalls and around the very top tiers in the venue there quite a few empty seats- Fact. Since they're privately owned and whatnot it's not any sort of complaint, just an observation as we could see all round the venue except immediately above our box.

Anyhoo, it was an ace and well-executed set all-round, the song choices were great (albeit a lack of Synchestra, amongst others). The sound was good (all things considered) and the lads were brilliant, especially Ryan. The man's an absolute machine! Both the audience and atmosphere in there were electric, seriously...Buy the Bluray! This is the tenth time I've seen them over the years and this particular show blew the previous experiences out of the water. Wonder what's next for them, as you can't really top playing at RAH! Furthermore, the visual aspect to the show was perfect and really added to the experience. Thankfully there was none of the coherence issues that plagued the Retinal Circus.

9.5/10 :D

As promised, here's some pics :)

Yes, yes, yes, all of this!
Getting that private box was the best thing ever. :D

The show was near perfect. It doesn't even make sense to compare to to the Retinal Circus.
I'm thinking the only way they can top this is if they do four RAH shows in a row ;)

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