Review: Devin Townsend, Trinity

How do you persuade a packed extreme metal crowd to stand in rapt, reverential silence for two hours? Why, wheel on Devin Townsend with an acoustic guitar, of course. Those awful hipster singer-songwritery types would probably kill for an audience that paid close attention rather than congratulating one another loudly on how cool they are and checking out each other’s beards all evening. Hevy Devy simply strolls on and commences improvisational noodling while giving voice to his internal monologue to illustrate his songwriting craft (it begins with mumbling, apparently) and you can hear the proverbial pin drop.

This low-key, barely advertised, sold out acoustic tour of British church venues sees the Canuck self-styled “low to intermediate-level prog-metal musician” rework material from his bewilderingly diverse back catalogue in a non ear-splitting format – with added falsetto. Some of these songs are fairly obvious choices drawn from his 2009 album, Addicted. The lovely Ih-Ah! showcases Devin at his poppiest, being built for a crowd singalong, and he’s frequently performed acoustic versions of Hyperdrive! But Strapping Young Lad’s Love? is a revelation. What was once a brutal assault is stripped back to reveal a stark, brooding and cynical meditation whose couplet “For I’m not the man you know/This love, it’s about control” becomes even more dark and menacing when disentangled from those powerchords. He needs a little audience help with the oom-pahs to pull off Juular, which, he discloses, would have been titled Jugular had it not been for a spellcheck malfunction. If Danny Elfman played metal, it would sound like this.

Freed from the constraints of big productions like his Retinal Circus show, he also proves quite the raconteur, giving vent to his various neuroses, from thinking he might be gay and the sheer effort of conforming to gender stereotypes (pretending to be interested in sport and cars) to the domestic comedown after a hugely successful tour (“Don’t you know who I think I am?”). He also tells a funny story about how he lazily pissed in the cat litter tray until his wife became convinced there was something terribly wrong with their feline companion, and expounds on his theory that playing metal is like being Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights.

Audience interaction ranges from the random and bizarre (“This girl licked your forehead!”) to requests for songs that are impossible to play acoustically – though he has a go at March of the Poozers and makes a game, if brief, attempt at Detox. The long instrumental section of Deep Peace is augmented by a rambling conversation with himself about how high he was when he wrote it, and he eventually pretends to leave the stage before returning for an encore of Slow Me Down (with snippets from Anthrax’s N.F.L.). Two great Bristol shows from Devin in less than a year? He spoils us. This was also probably the first time a metal musician has ever uttered the phrase: “Thank you for not being rowdy”.