LONDON — Canadian metal multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and producer Devin Townsend presented “The Retinal Circus” (named after an old Vancouver club in the 1960s, famous for psychedelic rock shows) in London’s 3,300-capacity Roundhouse on Oct. 27. Along with those at the venue, others experienced the show online. The performance was supported by gear from Radial Engineering.
More details from Radial Engineering (www.radialeng.com), provided shortly before the event:
Devin wrapped up work on his latest album this spring and went to work on the show immediately afterwards. “It is a show that will be a retrospective of my entire career at the Roundhouse in London. The experience will be extreme in all senses of the word, but I think that pretty much has been the case with every undertaking in my career. The central theme being a metaphor of how life and the adventures therein are a ‘circus’ of sorts. The show involves a cast of characters and guests that support this theme through carnival type performances. A story about how a troubled young man dreams of fantastic scenarios, (illustrated through the music of my back catalogue), which ultimately crests in the character’s realization that life is all about the relationships we have with each other. This is the first opportunity I have been given to make theatrical representations of my music.”
With a full choir, theatrical cast, circus and carnival performances Devin says this show has visual and aural enhancements unlike any show he has ever done before. With so many elements designed to work together to bring this show to life Devin will employ a lot of Radial gear.
“I use Radial gear for every element of my live performance. We have a custom 32 channel split snake, many DIs of various shapes and forms, an auto switcher for our backing tracks as well as numerous guitar specific boxes (JX44 etc). I choose Radial because it single handedly addresses and solves most all of the problems and concerns I’ve encountered over the years in a live forum. It is all housed in 3 large racks and we bring it everywhere in the world with us. I need a ‘backup for the backup’ in live music, but Radial hits the ball out of the park for me every time since I began to use it.”
Following the one-night show, Townsend and the Devin Townsend project pick up touring their latest album Epicloud with stops in France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, UK and Scotland before the end of 2012.
