While the roadies set the stage for Devin Townsend and his buddies, a videowall in the background exhibited the usual funny puppet footage that Mr. Townsend is so famous for. The music wasn’t very loud, so I can’t tell if it matched the videos or if it was the local DJ who was playing something. Or if it was Ziltoid Radio…

Then suddenly “Supercrush” rumbled through the room and the crowd went ballistic, practically at the same volume. I think it’s fair to say that half of the people there had been waiting for Devin Townsend more than they were for FEAR FACTORY.

After “Kingdom” and “Truth”, between which he greeted the audience, he half-asked, half-stated “by now you’ve all heard about Ziltoid, right?”. As the crowd screamed and the little alien showed in the videowall, “By Your Command” kicked off. Now I don’t know if it were the guitars that were too loud or the mic too low, but I had trouble listening to Devin‘s voice. So I’m not sure if he was talking as himself or impersonating Ziltoid when he said he had the smallest penis in the room. Knowing his sense of humour, it was probably himself. 

He also claimed that “Sunday Afternoon” was a song about love. That there was nothing like being on tour, playing for all “you beautiful people” and missing your wife. When the audience agreed, he added “no, I really mean missing YOUR wife”, which obviously caused huge laughter.

“Vampira” was dedicated to all the girls, to whom he thanked for coming out to see them that night. In order to hear them protesting, he asked “how many girls are here tonight? 15, 16?” – when he clearly saw that it was about a 50-50 split in terms of gender.

“We’re going to play now a song that sucks. I mean, all our songs suck, but this sucks more”. Devin meant “Lucky Animals”, and so to make things less sucking, he ordered everyone to “wave jazzy hands in the air”, as it’s seen in the official video. “It’s about 15 times during the song. I don’t care if you get tired, just keep doing it”.

Another memorable quote was when he asked a roadie for more guitar picks, as he “kept throwing them like some pretentious rock douche”.

In the end, he had chosen “Deep Peace” (in fact, that’s what’s written on the setlist), but the other guys wanted to play “Planet Of The Apes”. So we got to choose which one we wanted to hear, with Devin hinting that “Planet…” was a “very difficult song to play”. We didn’t care.  “Grrr, damn you!”. As he started to play, he bid farewell, saying he hoped to see at least 10 of us in the next gig – where he assured he WOULDN’T play “Planet Of The Apes”. The videowall showed the cover of BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME‘s “The Great Misdirect” with a puppet moving around – a puppet representing Tommy Giles Rogers, lead singer of the American band, as he’s a guest in the studio version of “Planet Of The Apes”.

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