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Category: Music

Heavy Devy: Redux

Published on August 2, 2022

Last time I went to see Devin Townsend live was back in 2019, and it didn’t exactly go as planned, as I detailed in my blog post back then. Little did I know what absolute fuckery was about to come out of a wetmarket in Wuhan, China before long.

“Say hello to my little friend.”

A couple years have passed, where mother earth was playing a very exciting game of Pandemic with real people. We’re not out of the woods yet, but things are returning to normal, and the disease is no longer considered quite as big a deal as it once was.

Devy’s back, let’s go!

When I saw Devin Townsend was returning to Oslo for his Lightwork tour, of course I just had to have tickets, and so I bought them.

Yay, Lightwork!

Turns out Devy was releasing a new album called Lightwork, and was promoting it on an album tour, including Europe. Sweet!

New album by Devin Townsend! Yay

But the album release was pushed back, and Ticketmaster decided not to let me know that until quite a lot of time had passed. However, Mr. Townsend still went on tour – playing various older songs, and he’s got an amazing discography, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I was able to refund the original tickets, and buy new ones for the other tour, which it turns out he was doing along with Dream Theater.

Being someone who listened a lot to Dream Theater in the mid 2000s, I thought that sounds good to me, and I ordered tickets for me and my girlfriend, and planned a stay with some relatives living a quick train ride away from Oslo. That way I can see relatives, cut costs, and drive my own car most of the way, without having to deal with Oslo traffic and parking and all that jazz. Sounds like a win to me!

Cool & good! They even have a cute kitten.

The logistics went perfectly this time around. No hiccups at all.

If anything went a bit wrong this time around, it might be that Devin Townsend was a warmup act for Dream Theater. His set wasn’t very long, and the audience was mostly there to see Dream Theater, which means they weren’t mostly there to see him, and I think they made that very clear unfortunately.

Devy must have picked up on it, because although he delivered a good show, he seemed almost depressed. Lacking some of the joy and spark I’ve come to appreciate about him. The technical aspect of the performance was great, and he played a very good setlist, so I’m pleased to have seen his show in it’s entirety – including finally hearing Deadhead live without having to leave the venue as it starts, as happened last time. But yes, something was amiss.

Poozer

The evening devolved into Devy making constant fart jokes, and telling the audience he doesn’t care that they’re not excited, he gets paid either way.

We enjoyed the show regardless, but I hope to see a whole show of him at his best. Then again, he’s weary of touring now from what he’s said. Still, he’s supposed to be back in February 2023, and I might catch his show then.

James LaBrie of Dream Theater

In my teens I used to listen to Dream Theater daily, but that night they were not my cup of tea, to put it mildly. Being a prog band, it’s to be expected that some of the music gets too esoteric and technical to be enjoyable to most people, and while I like a lot of their discography, I simply didn’t enjoy them that night. It didn’t help that James LaBrie seemed to have gotten hold of some bad amphetamine, with his uncoordinated whirling and jogging around the stage. We left pretty quickly.

After ditching Dream Theater, we headed to a bar called Brewgata instead. Although a bit hipstery, I found it enjoyable regardless. We enjoyed some drinks and a little people-watching before we headed to the train and went home, feeling like the night was a good experience all-round, even though I was a little bit disappointed the crowd bummed out Devvy, which in turn made his performance a little bit less exciting for those few of us who were there for him.

Better than last time, but let’s hope next time is even better!

Buckethead

Published on June 28, 2020
Soothsayer, performed live. Starts at roughly 25 seconds in.

The story of the guitar virtuoso known as Buckethead is that of a robot raised in a chicken coop – by chickens – wearing an expressionless white Mike Myers-esque horror mask concealing circuit boards and severe chicken scratches.

In memory of his fallen chicken-family fried for food, he dons the KFC bucket as a hat, and plays some of the most mind-blowing guitar play you’re ever going to experience.

A beginner’s guide to Buckethead

This guy is easily one of – if not the – best guitarist(s) in history. He was lead guitarist for Guns ‘n Roses back in the early 2000s, but decided it wasn’t for him. Instead, he decided to do smaller and more informal gigs on his own, and I can’t even begin to say how much I respect that. It shows he’s not about the money. He’s got plenty, but is focused on doing what he loves, rather than what will rake in even more cash.

Buckethead with Claypool Bernie Worrell and Brain

A highly experimental and extremely prolific artist, Buckethead has produced 314 studio albums, spanning various styles, genres and string instruments. He can play sentimental, tender melodies dedicated to close family members, and he can play faster, heavier stuff on the other end of the scale. The man is most definitely a master of his craft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sYbbk2yN0o
Buckethead – Siege Engine (album version)

Why, oh Vy?

Published on December 24, 2019

A tale of disappointment, frustration and lessons learned the hard way.

GET HYPE!

Devin Townsend is touring in Europe, and he’ll be playing Oslo!

– Naíve Ranyhyn, 2019

I immediately purchased a couple of tickets for Devins ‘Empath’ tour, with all the tail-wagging excitement of a labrador thinking he’s headed for walkies in the park.

Prepping

The concert was to be held on the 24th of November, a Sunday night, in Oslo. So to ensure I had enough time to get to the venue and enjoy my gig. How best to do that, one wonders?

Where I work, I’m lucky enough to enjoy a flexible schedule, which means in cases like this, I can usually arrange to have a day off, and work the hours back some other way. As long as I give sufficient notice, it’s hardly ever a problem, which I’m thankful for. So I gave ample notice to my boss that I would like to take Monday 25th of November off work, and that was OKed without any fuss. Excellent! Now for transport.

Rental?

I have this old diesel car, a 2001 VW Passat, that has seen a fair amount of mileage. For the past year I’ve noticed some issues with acceleration and have been unable to pinpoint and fix it completely. We found a hole in an EGR valve, which was replaced by a mechanic friend of mine, and we flushed the engine and turbo system as well, but still it struggles to even reach the speed limit in some cases. So I decided I didn’t want to take my car to Oslo, where diesel cars are banned at least some of the time.

Instead of using my car, My roommate and I decided to rent one. We found a rental agency, and found a suitable car. We decided the cost was acceptable, even factoring in the higher level insurance we wanted to get to cover any and all possible damages that might occur, just to be safe.

Shortly before the concert was set to happen, my roommates cousin offers to lend us his car. Being at least somewhat frugal and seeing no sense in giving good money to a rental agency when we can get it for next to nothing, we agree, and decide not to book the car instead. We thought we were clever. Alas, the innocence of youth..

Murphy’s Law

The evening before the concert, the guy whose kind offer of borrowing his car suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten to put the centric rings on when he changed to winter tires.

So. Not that car, then. It was too late to get a hold of a rental too. What do we do? Let’s check buses then!

No buses going quite so late. Maybe a train would work? Let’s look up train schedules.

Oh god, vy?

With the concert starting at 19:00 we saw an opportunity to arrive in Oslo at 18:30, and leave again with the last train out. That gave us several hours for the concert, which should be done by then. Gigs usually last around two hours so we thought we were good. Even including the sound check and encores.

To avoid having to wait for 4 hours and 45 minutes at Nelaug train station – conveniently located in the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere – before getting on the connecting train home, we decided to arrange transport to and from Nelaug by car.

Being a seasoned concert-goer you noticed our mistake right away. We didn’t account for the warm-up act.

Being a seasoned train commuter however, you noticed yet another mistake we made: Thinking that 30 minutes extra would provide sufficient temporal slack for us. But no, Vy had other plans.

Delays

While waiting for the train at Nelaug station, we were informed that the train would be running about 20 minutes late, because they’d decided to pick up more cargo than they had originally planned. This took extra time in and of itself, but there’s an additional delay from the added weight not accounted for. This caused us to arrive in Oslo an hour after schedule.

Vy arrives on time – an event which grabs national headlines:
“Official spokesperson assures public it’ll never happen again.”

Haken

We may have arrived an hour late, but it turns out this was just in time for the warm-up act. The one we hadn’t factored into the concert duration when we booked our return tickets. Yeah.. We got an hour of whatever the fuck this is first.

To be fair, it’s our own damn fault. I know there’s always a warm-up act, and the Empath tour poster on the Devin Townsend website even mentions Haken being part of the tour.

So, with the warmup act and the main act sound check concluded, it was time for some of what we came for.

Ain’t never gonna win.

We had to leave after the track ‘Never Gonna Win’ in order to have enough time for the train ride home.

My favorite tracks of this tour being Deadhead, Why?, Kingdom and Spirits will Collide – I was pretty disappointed I didn’t get to hear any of them. But that was nothing compared to the disappointment of hearing the intro to Deadhead just as I was heading out.

Every fiber of my being told me to dig my nails into the wall, refusing to leave until the song was over. Sadly, my voice of reason won out, and I begrudgingly left the concert hall, heading for the train home. God damn, those were some of the hardest steps I ever took..

My face when I’d found my seat on the train home.

Lessons learned

Next time, I’ll book a hotel for the night, and I’ll be taking an early bus.

Seven Inches of Satanic Panic

Published on September 30, 2019

The Swedish metal band Ghost has released a new single, featuring two new songs – Kiss the Goat, and Mary on a Cross.

True to form, they’re marketing their new single with a generous helping of tongue-in-cheek, although whose tongue is in whose cheek is up for debate, knowing Papa Nihil – the fictional character who released these songs during the summer of love back in 1969, and who now tries to stay relevant by re-releasing the Seven Inches of Satanic Panic single at it’s 50th anniversary.

Of course, Ghost never existed back then and the songs are brand new, but they’ve got that late ’60s sound, and so this was a natural marketing gimmick, for a band where the front figure is routinely killed off and replaced with a successor for every new record.

Papa Emeritus I-III

Each front-figure has it’s own distinct style, both visually and vocally, and the albums are all very different from one another, while still being tied together by this fictional satanic cult hell-bent (get it? heh..) on bringing forth the antichrist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CULRete_Hok

After the album Meliora, the band members had a falling out, over what essentially amounts to a contract dispute. It’s my understanding that the lead singer – Tobias Forge – was managing the finances for the band, and the other members wanted a larger cut, but Tobias saw Ghost as a solo project, where they were hired musicians, and since he won out in court, I believe this to be reflected in their contracts. It’s a shame it went down the way it did, but due to the way the brand is set up, Ghost could survive such a monumental change to it’s lineup with relative ease.

One hitch in all of this is that – if the sources I’ve read are to be believed – guitarist Martin Persner was the one who had brought the character of Papa Emeritus to the table, as it had been created by a friend of his. So with Martins departure, Ghost itself had to depart from the Papa Emeritus line of characters – by killing them off, of course.

Enter Cardinal Copia

Ghost frontman solved this problem by assuming the persona of Cardinal Copia, a clumsy and somewhat incompetent cardinal of the satanic church. Seemingly the sole reason for his rise to frontman status is that he’s the lovechild of Papa Nihil and Sister Imperator, whose origin stories are depicted in the music video for the song Dance Macabre of the Prequelle album.

So, fast forwarding a few years after the events of Dance Macabre, we find ourselves in 1969 – time doesn’t seem entirely linear here but alright – where a young Papa Nihil is fronting the band, and releasing the original Seven Inches of Satanic Panic single, which we’re seeing re-released for it’s 50th anniversary now.

…is it any wonder I love this band?