I really enjoyed watching the live stream last night, I'll agree the audio mix could have been a bit better, but I kind of adjusted to it after the first couple of songs so it didn't really bother me. The whole thing was so crazy and over the top, I loved it, but my highlight definitely has to be when Jed walked onto the stage and they played Detox. I hope some is able to upload a better quality version than the one that's currently on youtube because I really want to watch this again, will definitely be buying the DVD when it's out.

When Jed walked out, the place went absolutely batshit crazy, it was awesome! I headbanged so hard I'm so sore today, and I had to drive back from London using all my willpower to hold my head up straight. >_<

TOTALLY worth it.

When Dev started playing the "Love?" riff, I just grabbed the nearest person to me and gave them a huge hug. Absolutely no idea who they were but we headbanged together for the rest of the gig, hah.

I watched some of the stream today, and whilst you see a fair bit of the audience, the video just doesn't capture how mental it went when they played the Strapping stuff.

Like dead rock stars, Strapping seems to have gotten bigger and bigger since it was no longer around!

Given that Dev will be touring with Gojira, do you think it is possible for "Detox" to rear its ugly head again?

Not according to Devin about two hours ago on Twitter:

And finally... no. I will not be playing SYL covers at future shows. Retinal was meant as a statement I suppose.

[Octillus]

From RVP on facebook:

Ryan Van Poederooyen: Dev told me personally today that we'll NEVER play those songs again. I'm fine with that. I felt weird playing them in the first place. I had to keep it quiet about Retinal Circus but it had to be done at that show since it was a retrospective look at Dev's career. Glad it was done.... pretty insane experience to say the least

I think, as a retrospective of Dev's career, as Dev recognized, SYL had to be played. I don't want SYL played again, honestly. This capped it, for me. It gave that one last window, a sort of closure to SYL that maybe in some way was needed. It's like SYL can rest peacefully now or something. It took balls for Dev to play those 2 songs as all the questions will be reawakened for a short time, but I think in the long run it's better. It showed Dev wasn't afraid to play those songs but just doesn't want to anymore.

That doesn't make much sense but... I don't care.

It's too bad he's gonna be answering questions about a SYL reunion even more frequently now. I really don't want SYL to reform, his solo music is really going to some cool places and to have him tied town to that one kind of music would be disappointing.

they all say it will NEVER happen. but then it always DOES happen. i'd give it some more years

I can understand why SYL won't reform but I can't understand why Devin doesn't play any SYL material live. I mean he has solo material heavier than tracks on The New Black and his reasons seem a bit wishy-washy. Btw, I'm not particularly a SYL fanboy but it was good to see/hear that material and the crowd going crazy. As someone said, it doesn't seem clear from the live stream but someone uploaded poor mobile footage from the left near the stage and it looked like a riot!

Regarding the gig - I'd need to see the official DVD release to properly judge it but going from the youtube uploaded stream I felt quite mixed. I think Devin's seemingly constant need to frame and conceptualise his work weakened the track selection. An actual career retrospective would've surely produced a better track selection than a series of songs that tried to tell some superfluous narrative. Still can't believe Ki was ignored and surprised nothing from Ghost was played. Although nice to hear the Ziltoid and Infinity songs so maybe it balances out.

I don't think I liked the theatrics in that I'm not sure they added much given the amount of effort put into them. The music and Devin have enough umph on their own. See his Tuska gigs for evidence. Sometimes less is more.

Someone mentioned earlier about the 'karaoke' of Devin's gigs and I know what he means. It was nowhere near as bad as Deconstruction Live but I'd wished he'd get a live keyboardist for one and sing all the vocal parts in whatever reinterpretation he feels is needed. That choir during True North and the 4 backing singers I don't think were even mic-ed - I couldn't hear them.

I love Anneke's voice but I sometimes felt it was either too dominate in the mix and/or she was contributing to too many songs for which her voice wasn't suited.

I'm glad I didn't purchase PPV as the youtube upload was stopping a lot in part 2 - obviously not fault of Devins!

I've focused mainly on the negatives but it's clear that actually being there was a great and different experience. I'm sure a lot more of that will come through on the DVD and I'd echo many of the positives people have already mentioned.

I think, as a retrospective of Dev's career, as Dev recognized, SYL had to be played. I don't want SYL played again, honestly. This capped it, for me. It gave that one last window, a sort of closure to SYL that maybe in some way was needed. It's like SYL can rest peacefully now or something. It took balls for Dev to play those 2 songs as all the questions will be reawakened for a short time, but I think in the long run it's better. It showed Dev wasn't afraid to play those songs but just doesn't want to anymore.

That doesn't make much sense but... I don't care.

That made perfect sense and was spot on.

Further to all that, why should he go on stage and feel like a fraud when playing tracks he can no longer get behind emotionally just to keep folks happy when he has a gazillion other tracks he can play with full genuine feeling?

Did we love SYL? Yeah, of course we did and what gets played now won;t ever change that.

Do we have any right to demand Deving plays SYL tracks ad infinitum? Nah, of course not.

There's also the reason that Ryan doesn't wanna play SYL...he said it was fucking hard work

There's also the reason that Ryan doesn't wanna play SYL...he said it was fucking hard work

Hadn't thought about it from that angle - must be a heck of change, going from some of the slower, later stuff to some of those SYL tracks and back again!

Detox sounded amazing, but I can totally understand Dev taking a hard stand against playing that stuff now. When he quit doing Strapping the first time he said all the same reasons as why he did it the second time: then he came back after a break with SYL, then Alien and the New Black and they all seemed to me that whilst musically brilliant of course that they were somewhat half hearted in a lot of ways. If someone says that they dont want to do something and gives a bunch of genuine reasons then goes against that and suddenly does exactly what they were arguing against I guess you cant help but feel a teeny bit cynical about it can you?! To me from the SYL album onwards he seemed to be playing the role, rather than the genuinely angry young man of the City period. Remember it as it was, the angry sounds of a man pissed off at the world. He's in a different place now. Onwards and upwards!

Oh, and I thought the Retinal Circus was part high school drama project, (in a good way), part superbly original rock theatre and part really weird dream, and it must have required balls of iron by Dev to actually manage to get the whole thing up and running. Whether some parts of it worked or not is irrelevant. We are all witnessing the development of a truely truely important artist here, so enjoy what we can when we can and appreciate and love the man for being so monstrously prolific and intelligently inventive.

Big Love. x

(and Ryan played those Strapping tracks FLAWLESSLY. A god of a drummer indeed.)

I showed some parts of the recorded live stream to my girlfriend yesterday (she wanted to come with me to London, but couldn