Devin Townsend. Generally speaking the mention of the man's name causes most metalheads to break into a gleeful hysteria and usually with good reason: there has been very little he's done wrong musically. And I'm pretty sure the sold out crowd at the gig agreed with me. However before his radiant shiny head could take to the stage there was the matter of the support band which was a strange one when it was first announced.

Aeon Zen went from what was a practically unknown band to touring across Europe (excluding Finland, as those lucky bastards got Shining of BlackJazz fame) with Devin. But given the choice, I'd rather have what the Finns got as I wasn't really in the mood for a generic prog/power band over them. When Aeon Zens intro track/backing video kicks off with a close up of their founder member's face it doesn't really give you a warm, "I shall like this band" feeling. Musically the band were pretty competent, all the members were clearly well practiced. The keyboardist looked very uncomfortable until the last two songs where he decided he wanted to play something other than backing chords all the time, and you could sing along if you wanted as their little video package occasionally flashed up some of the lyrics from the songs. The bassist's (the founder member guy) gurning was a little odd at times but the guy could sing when it came to the backing vocals. Speaking of vocals, their singer deciding that the crowd needed the extra details about how he was pissing blood due to his illness was a bit unnecessary. A little techy thing I noticed was the band running everything digitally, including the use of an electric drum kit, which I thought was rather interest from a sound engineer point of view. The only really thing that disagreed with me with that set up was that their kick drum was way too high in the mix but it worked. Overall it was very... cheesy. The band was not bad, but I've heard this sort of stuff done before by a number of others. To me Aeon Zen came across as a cabaret version of Dream Theater, complete with a little karaoke on the side. Live they were very tight, but the music didn't do a thing for me I'm afraid.

A little intermission from Ziltoid Radio featuring all your favourite metal bands like Aqua, Abba and The Vengaboys played during the changeover. A nice little touch.

And then there was Devy. Not a lot to say here, both he and the band were spectacular on the night. The set was slightly focussed on his later material, as you may have guessed, as they opened up with Addicted!, Supercrush! and Numbered with Devin taking on all the vocal parts admirably, and played a few tracks from Ziltoid as well with the coffee hunter himself appearing on the video screens as well as a few older tracks like the mighty Kingdom, and the latter half of the main set consisted of nothing but Devin Townsend Band material, including the stunning Deadhead, Earth Day and Life. The crowd loved every moment, singing along word for word with the slighter calmer tracks and going a bit more mental for the likes of Kingdom and By My Command (painfully so). Devin's banter was top notch, he managed to keep the crowd entertained with mere facepulling but his charisma and charm just oozed out, though the bunny ears and ladies' hat that ended up on stage helped out a little as well. In between the main set and the encore there was a little film that played like the intermission films that were used in the 50's cinemas and such. Again, a little thing but nice. The first encore drew out more Ziltoid songs, though methinks the video packages were a bit out of time with some of the audio. A minor blip but it'd have been nice to have had everything going as planned. Finally there was Deep Peace to finish things off on a calmed note. The shift into it was well played, going from Color Your World into the The Greys into this. The Ziltoid stuff in sounded massive compared to how it is on record, so the progression from each song into the next was far more noticeable. The band left the stage again, but not for long as they returned for the finale with Bend it Like Bender!, dragging people out the crowd on stage to sing/dance/do whatever they felt like. A nice way to end a huge show.

Basically, if you get the chance to see Devin go do it. The band was faultless. Aeon Zen aren't quite there yet but no doubt will be getting a lot more attention from the tour. Though they really need to drop those video packages, that dude's face could cause nightmares...