Devin Townsend’s Retinal Circus
27 October 2012
The Roundhouse, London
How do top playing your last four albums over four consecutive nights at four different venues? Well if you’re Devin Townsend you allow your imagination to run riot, or in fact run out of your mind and into the Roundhouse venue in London. Described as “the definitive Devin show to date”, Devin Townsend’s Retinal Circus, named after an old 1960’s Vancouver club famous for psychedelic rock, presented a performance on a number of levels, with music, actors, acrobats and of course Ziltoid The Omniscient.
Aside from being streamed live on the web, the show was being filmed for a DVD release and as such forgive me as I skate across the content. Aside from anything, remembering and even taking notes on everything that happened was something of a challenge! If you weren’t there or were not watching, buy the DVD next year, I certainly will.
 
The show followed a story of a character called Harold, portrayed on stage by actor Danny Cooksey, who those old enough may remember playing young kid Sam McKinney in the last couple of series of Different Strokes and John Connor’s mullet haired friend Tim in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
On the screens, the story was narrated by the man who gave Devin his first break, guitar maestro Steve Vai. Aside from the video and sound being out of time on a few occasions, Vai’s narration certainly helped in trying to get your head around what was going on and also addressing the crowd directly, Vai’s footage was both humorous and formed a link with the audience.
The show kicked off with a 24 person choir singing Epicloud opener Effervescent!, before Anneke Van Giersbergen appeared on the platform above the drums to sing True North to Harold who was by now tucked up in bed. A huge roar greeted Devin to the stage and the madness commenced with choir members in animal masks, people in ape costumes, rope artists and fire during Lucky Animals and Planet Of The Apes.
 
The nuttiness continued with Ziltoid’s arrival during Planet Smasher which featured a giant inflatable cock, a ten foot tall vagina and Metal Hammer’s Dom Lawson taking the stage in some strange black metal regalia complete with a crown to handle the death style vocals.
Ziltoid’s wife called in on the screens to announce she was pregnant and indeed Ziltoid became a father during Babysong.
Skipping along, Vai offered us chance to go to the loo or bar with a timed interval counting down until Devin re-emerged on stage for an acoustic rendition of Hyperdrive. He was joined by Anneke to duet on Ih-Ah!
We’d been promised guests and to be honest they were a lot lighter on the ground than perhaps was expected. However the Roundhouse was turned into a mass of movement when Jed Simon of Strapping Young Lad appeared and that band’s Detox thundered by.Simon stuck around for Bend It Like A Bender! as the stage was invaded by numerous extras including pole dancers.
  
The biggest sing along of the set was saved for Ocean Machine’s Life but the crowd were also given a further work out with another Strapping Young Lad inclusion, Love?
The wall of sound that was Grace saw pretty much everyone back on stage with confetti cannons flooding the venue. Bringing things down to close, rarity Little Pig was presented in a sitting room set with band members seated strumming along.
This was an incredibly ambitious undertaking from Devin Townsend and yes it wasn’t flawless but with that much going on and as a one off that’s to be expected. The story may have been rather whacked out, but would you expect anything less from Devin. He’s stated that he’d like this to be something of a blueprint for future live shows and as such I really look forward to what he comes up with in the future, remembering this was only “the definitive Devin show TO DATE.” I can’t describe the Retinal Circus as anything less than a success and I left the Roundhouse tired from grinning for its full duration.
Devin Townsend setlist
Effervescent! / True North / Lucky Animals / Planet of the Apes / Truth / War / Planet Smasher / Babysong / Vampolka / Vampira / Addicted! / Color Your World / The Greys / Hyperdrive / Ih-Ah! / Where We Belong / Detox / Bend It Like Bender! / Life / Kingdom / Juular / Love? / Wild Colonial Boy / Grace / Little Pig
LINKS:
http://www.hevydevy.com
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