Rock City tonight hosts the first of two warm up gigs for the Devin Townsend Project before his appearance at Sonisphere this Sunday on the main stage, as he stated on stage ‘to go from months of mixing in the studio to live performance is a big jump’ hence the gigs and also I suppose to give the fans a chance to get to see him without paying festival prices.

The venue although a bit sparse for the support bands Empire and Thine steadily fills up as we approach the 8.30pm kickoff for DTP and there is a great buzz of anticipation around room which is matched by the many merch-clad fans.

The lights dim and the video screens flicker into life, now personally never having witnessed a Devin show I could have been led to thinking someone had spiked my drink as the weird and wacky videos of Ziltoid and various others rolled out but when it came to the dancing cows! I was gone, udder udder madness.

Devin wanders onto the stage and is greeted by a hugely enthusiastic crowd and he actually seems overwhelmed by the reaction and lauds it up, after a quick bit of banter and some guitar glitches we are thrown into his musical mind with a setlist that spans his solo and DTP work back to 1997 and Seventh Wave through to 2012 with Liberation.

Like his mind, the music bounces around styles proggy, industrial but overall heavy and precise. He is joined onstage by Dave Young (guitar), Brian Waddell (bass) and Ryan Van Poederooyen on drums who provide the tight backline.

It all kicks off with a ‘Seventh Wave’, ‘War’ and ‘By Your Command’.  ‘War’ is more of a pop sounding song than most of his work but gives the crowd a chance to join in. Devin is on form with his banter and pops in snippets of info as he seems to be really enjoying the show and he makes a jaunt into the photopit to be up close and personal with the fans.

As the set winds through the albums and gets extremely proggy, which was a surprise to me as I always had him as a more heavy/mental outfit. ‘Liberation’ gets the tempo going again and the crowd that has been very emotive and responsive all night gives their all to the anthemic ‘Grace’ as they all hail the mighty Devin.

After an ‘Old Man Break’ of 2 minutes the band who haven’t even left the stage break into the last track of the night ‘Bad Devil’. For my first experience of Devin I have to say it was an awesome, involving, experience both visually and audibly. Sonisphere… you are going to enjoy!

Review and photos by Simon Dunkerley

SETLIST: Seventh Wave (Ocean Machine, 1997)/ War (Infinity, 1998)/ By Your Command (2007)/ Deadhead (Accelerated Evolution, 2003)/ Planet Of The Apes (Deconstructed, 2011)/ Numbered/Supercrush (Addicted, 2009)/ Kingdom (Physicist, 2000)/ Juular (Deconstructed)/ Liberation/Grace  (Epicloud, 2012)/ Encore: Bad Devil (Infinity)

Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.

Next session: Sunday 19 January

Check out videos here: https://www.facebook.com/getreadytorockradio

David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast on 1 December 2024.

UK Blues Broadcaster of the Year (2020 and 2021 Finalist) Pete Feenstra presents his weekly Rock & Blues Show on Tuesday at 19:00 GMT as part of a five hour blues rock marathon “Tuesday is Bluesday at GRTR!”. The show is repeated on Wednesdays at 22:00, Fridays at 20:00). This show was first broadcast 3 December 2024.

How to Listen Live?

Click the programming image at the top of the page (top right of page if using desktop)

Listen via Windows Media Player. Click or tap here and “open file”
Listen via other media player (eg. VLC) Click or tap here and “open file”

Get Ready to ROCK! Radio is also in iTunes under Internet Radio/Classic Rock
Listen in via the Tunein app and search for “Get Ready to ROCK!” and save as favourite.

More information and links at our radio website where you can listen again to shows via the presenter pages: getreadytorockradio.com

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)

Popular (last 10 days)

Album review: EARLY JAMES – Medium Raw

Album review: MICKY JUPP – Times Like These

Album review: MAGNUM – Live At KK’s Steel Mill

Album review: WITHIN SILENCE – The Eclipse Of Worlds

Album review: WE ARE BODIES – The Love Was All We Had

PDF - you can delete unwanted sections