Devin Townsend & Fear Factory

The Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton is one of those venues, like the Glasgow Barrowlands where I see loads of bands advertise that they’re playing, but under normal circumstances I’d have no reason to go and see them there. On this particular tour it turns out Wolverhampton was the most convenient place for us to get to to see Devin Townsend and Fear Factory. What a great venue! It had one of the clearest sound systems with more definition of sound than you get in a lot of venues, but it was stupidly loud. Ear plugs were even on sale behind the bar. And being the midlands, everyone was really friendly.

Looking back, Fear Factory are one of those bands that I thought I really liked when I was at school, but it turns out it was just a couple of songs from the Demanufacture album. When they made a comeback with Mechanize in 2010 I got into them again and bought up their back catalogue. I still only like a few songs from Demanufacture, but the rest of their albums are great especially the debut Soul of a New Machine and the most recent, The Industrialist. I’ve seen them live before at Donington in 1994 and seeing them again now reminded me just how simple and infectious their take on industrial metal really is. I really enjoyed their set, especially opener The Industrialist and closer Replica. Definitely a band I want to see more.

Charlotte and I have had great difficulty in getting to see Devin Townsend. I missed him at Bloodstock on 2010 as we were having our first baby. Then Charlotte and I both missed him in 2011 as Charlotte was very pregnant and felt too ill to go on the day. This time we didn’t have much luck either as Charlotte was unable to stand for long. However, we did get to see the hilarious videos that Devin plays before his set and the first four or five songs of the set including the amazing Supercrush and ZTO. He’s an all round performer and just plays so well. Long may he continue and could we have Strapping Young Lad back please?

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Paul Grenyer

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