Vocal Coach/Opera Singer REACTION to Devin Townsend "Deadhead"
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- čas přidán 14. 10. 2023
- #devintownsend #deadhead #metalcore #reaction
Probably my favourite discovery so far, I was blown away. Join me- a professional opera singer, as I listen to Devin Townsend for the first time, performing "Deadhead".
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Performed by The Devin Townsend Project
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Here's the original performance:
• • DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT...
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Instagram: / cristinamrusso
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🎵SINGING LESSONS AT MY STUDIO: RESONANT LAB🎵
Want to learn how to sing with me? Get in touch at www.resonantlab.co
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I'm Cristina, opera singer, speech pathologist singing teacher. I have spent over a decade in the music industry as a performer, and I’ve done some pretty cool things as an opera singer, film vocalist, lyricist and jazz singer.
Here you'll find videos that deep-dive into artists that you adore. We'll unpack what makes a great and not so great vocal performance, and we'll also get into some voice tips and education about the science of the voice.
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Does anyone have any theories about why Devin switches from this clean warm singing tone to super nasal at the start of the song? Come at me with your lyrical analysis, people!
Devin has been my favourite musician since 1997 (showing my painfully advancing years) one of the things that is most important to him when writing, recording and producing music is the intention of things, he spends a lot of time on details. In my mind at least, the clean open voice singing "You are a sun godess" is a genuine expression of love and awe. The more nasal "Will you save me? Hooray for you, hooray" is more sarcastic and bitter, like in the aftermath of an argument. I think of the two lines as being said at different times, if that makes sense. Anyway enough rambling nonsense from me. I enjoyed your video on this, cheers from Scotland.
Devin is a about communicating emotion. He can expertly connect his voice to all of the changing emotions a person can go through. It's like the micro expressions on a face you see when you play a video back in slow motion. He is a generational talent. He can pull of "Bring Him Home" from "Les Mis" (live on the CBC is the best as well as death-metal, or ambient soundscapes and pop music. Or maybe even everything altogether in one song like he does in "Genesis". The deepest dive you can go on.
Where to start with this powerhouse of an artist. He has become a lot more mellow over the last years, which most of his music also shows. "Deadhead" is from the album "Accelerated Evolution" which turned 20 this year. I would definitely recommend doing a dive through his discography (there is a lot). He is diverse, talented as only a few and also a goofball. He has done ambient, thrash, industrial thrash, blues, country, jazz themes and even polka. His band "Strapping Young Lad", which doesn't exist anymore is a wild ride. But great to have you include Devin in your reactional library.
@clausnielsen9446 I recommended Why from his quarantine show so she could get an idea of Devy's versatility and techniques. Devy is a criminally underrated vocalist, but those who really get what he means love him.
Possibly a character choice to differentiate the warm flattery and the needy request.
You should check out "Devin Townsend performs 'Kingdom' for EMGtv". Not only great vocals, but a great showman.
I concur!
Yes!!! EMGtv, "Kingdom". A must see/experience.
100% must see TV! ^^
Kingdom 🤘
Kingdom 🤘
The bit where he tells the audience to "pick a tempo" cracks me up every time.
And it's the super-dry WAY he does it too: "If you feel like it at any point though, you know, pick a tempo." 😆
Saw him in Amsterdam, opening for Dream Theater. A lot of people didn't know his stuff and he remarked at one stage, "And the crowd goes mediocre!" 😅
@@templedark5960 😄
If I know Devin the way I think I know Devin, I'm sure he wrote that section exactly for the purpose of making that joke at live performances.
@@indus3270 I have yet to notice any other live versions of Deadhead where he says that. You'd think if it was on purpose he would have made the joke in numerous other performances.
Fun fact, Devin was still getting over a flu when this show was recorded.
The dude has such good control on his singing.
Yep, this was in the UK and we caught him in Manchester either before or after this was recorded, but he had flu and he sounded terrific. There's a clip somewhere on CZcams because a guy dressed as a Banana was pulled out of the crowd to get on stage. It was a great night.
This particular song and video always feels like a religious experience for me. The wall of sound, the vocals, those massive screens behind them, it's almost overwhelming.
Kingdom is going to be a popular suggestion but I also recommend checking out his song "Why?"
same. I never make it through without shedding a few tears.
Yep, same here. It's a way to reconnect to a deep part of myself.
This song brings up emotions I don't want to have and I love it for that. Plus this song has to be played at 11 every time
Yes! Especially his quarantine show is brilliant
Devin has Synesthesia. He couldn’t read music, but instead saw it as colours. I said couldn’t because he more recently did work with an orchestra and had to learn to read music because he couldn’t say “let’s play that yellow note……”
If thats true thats awesome, if not, thats fucking hilarious. Statement wins either way.
@@bendooley550 It’s from a Rick Beato interview - I’ve compressed some of his comments but it’s there. Just rewatched and it’s starts somewhere about 28 minutes where synesthesia comes up but Beato asks him directly about it at about 31:08. czcams.com/video/FoDFEYKUB7g/video.htmlsi=VV4u9eOY8fZsFU29
i was there for this one, it was 2.5 hours into the 3 hour set, and he had cold!!! man is a machine.
I'm so glad he's really in touch with himself spiritually, he embodies the rock and roll mentality of getting up there and doing your job no matter what and that's something that kills rock stars who don't meditate.
This was a massive show, Devin performed his album Ziltoid in full with himself and the band all kitted out in costumes/themed clothes & this was the 2nd part of the show which was his greatest hits kinda thing & they're all dressed casual. Lucky, lucky people that were there!
This is one of the rare cases where the live version of the song is heads and tails above the studio version. I might argue that this is one of the best live recordings in the history of live recordings depending on the parameters you're using to judge. This is an excellent example of a "perfect storm" when the natural qualities of the venue you are playing in is paired with the technical knowledge and experience of the engineers. It is quite literally flawless imo.
Same with Van Halen's Live Without A Net from 86, for the time that was an insanely well recorded show. That live version of 5150 is another case of the live version being significantly better than the already awesome album song.
Listen to him sing a "Disney song" he wrote, called "Why". This man is the most talented musician in the entire rock/metal scene.
Why is so good. Love Empath
I left the same comment and then scrolled down to see that you beat me to it. Kingdom is great, but these vocal coaches are trying to see what the hubbub is all about with dev. Why is the song for that. Or if they can stomach it, far beyond metal. That song shows is ENTIRE range.
The live in London (order of magnitude) is such fun to watch and listen too.
@@gotd4mAlmost Again from the New Black is another good one.
Tbf Corey Taylor is up there too ito talent. As was Chris Cornell. Not taking anything from Townsend. Metal vocalists are so often underappreciated because of their genre.
So good to see you on CZcams again! This is a great introduction to Townsend. He's so playful and engaging on stage. A more intimate -- but no less powerful -- showcase of Devin's talent is the live studio version of "Kingdom". I highly encourage giving that a look and/or a reaction. It's fantastic. And again, good to see you again!
Love seeing new reactions to Devy. As for the quiet chanting in the middle of the song, it repeats
"It's on again, (got no wings... gossamer wings...) on again..."
As far as why he chooses the vocal tones he does, one of the best theories I read on the lyrics, is that it tells the story of him, being bipolar, and his relationship with his wife and how they deal with it. Whether that's true or not who knows, but it seems to fit I think, with the way the song ebbs and flows from dark and tumultuous to brighter tones.
Enjoyed your reaction! And welcome to the wild world of Devin lol
It's always great to watch someone listen to Devin for the first time. This song is brilliant, I mean the intro is great but the rest of the song has this grinding power to it, along with that beautiful towering voice! I have to say tho that this is just the tip of the iceberg, so much more awesomeness from Devin for you to discover
If you go back to Devin on this channel eventually, one set of songs that are not recommended enough but that forms a truly magical experience is the combo Funeral/Bastard/Death Of Music from that same live show at Royal Albert Hall. The lyrics are crushing and the experience is so deeply moving to me, and there's once again there some mind-blowing vocals from Devin... It's three songs so it's a bit long but it's well worth it
Yes. Funeral/Bastard/Death of Music. I second, third, fourth, and all vote this.
Love your videos and reactions, thank you for creating content
I appreciate that 💛 thank you
A point rarely mentioned about Devin: his interpretation. Its not the lyrics by themselves, "will you save me, pain" are not really a very deep lyrical moment, but the WAY that he "sings" that, the way that he interprets and probably relives the feelings associated with those lyrics, are 80% of Devin's impact on people. As can be noticed by your suddenly serious face, the involuntary swallow and the close to tears in your eyes.
He was just here in Australia! Such an incredible performer with a huge range of work - can’t really go wrong with any of the already mentioned suggestions!!
Saw him in Melbourne and Sydney on successive nights. He is a musical god.
Possibly the most talented Canadian musical artist ever, that virtually no Canadians have ever heard of…
I'd say that Devin's ability to control his distortion is his greatest strength. "A million micro-shifts" was dead on. It's not just on or off, there are an infinite number of different possible intensities and mixtures.
I love the moment at about 14:35 where there's the realisation he isnt just screaming but has solid pitch control even with that much distortion. Absolute master vocalist.
Please listen to his live performance of "The Death of Music".
Spectacular vocals and its from this sane concert too. 🎶
Yes yes people need to listen to that much under rated song !
Glad you enjoyed checking out Devin! For a completely different side of him as a vocalist, check out his live solo acoustic cover of "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis. It's exceptional.
Wow, i was waiting for your video so long time because i know it is worth to wait. Your explanation is so interesting for me. Thanks!
Wonderful reaction. Such a unique talent, and I'm glad you appreciated it with us!
This was such a pleasure. You have to explore his catalog. There will be things that bring tears of joy and intense emotion. If you hear something you don't like - there is so much that you will fall in love with. His modern music is written around his glorious voice, and his operatic tenor and falsetto are featured more often. There's a lot more than screaming and heavy music. I would love to see more Dev reactions and critiques. Cheers!!
What an excellent reaction, you will love "kingdom", a video studio from EMGTV
He is so good at that... yes... that sums up Devin in a nutshell! He is so unique and gifted and a wonderful human being, too!
i teared up at the end, just like you did.
Actually saw Devin live at a music festival at a farm in the UK. Booked flights from NZ to watch two of my fav bands Igorrr and Heilung. Devin was announced as a headliner much closer to the event, so I was pretty chuffed.
He is such an entertainer and very funny live.
Fantastic reaction, Cristina. This performance of "Deadhead" is from the second half of a concert. The first half was an entire concept/story album called "Ziltoid". He had about another 10 songs on the set list after "Deadhead". He's just a very powerful singer. Also, a heck of a nice guy. I recommend checking out his song "Why", either his live from "Order of Magnitude" or the Quarantine version. Both are great, the quarantine version is just him so you can see more of what he's doing, but the other is before an audience and you can see his audience interaction.
I recommend the quarantine version, just to see what he was able to do with his kids game controller!
@@northof4912 I do recommend quarantine version as well.
So glad you’re back! And boy what a great reaction to return with!!! Keep it up please! 🙏
His discography is extremely diverse. This is my favorite song, but some others worth checking out to sample a bit of variety:
- Ih Ah (duet with Anneke Van Giersbergen, another artist I heartily recommend checking out if you haven't heard her before)
- Why? (some call it the disney song. do check out the london live performance one).
- Juular (He meant to write Jugular, but got a typo, and he thought it sounded like a fun name for a religious extremist so he wrote a song about that. wild music video. features Ihsahn).
- Spirits Will Collide (Kinda jubilant song, very wholesome and cool music video).
- Moonpeople (One of his newer songs, quite soft and pop-y)
- Kingdom (Perhaps his most impressive vocal performance?)
- Detox (From his Strapping Young Lad days, when he screamed until his throat started bleeding. very aggressive music).
- Vampira (Excellent halloween content. Greatest music video ever made. showcases a lot of his whimsy while still good musically)
- March of the Poozers (Just... just watch the live performance one in London, same set as this one i believe. best intro point to the whole ziltoid saga probably).
- Genesis (Because why try to confine a song to one or even just a few genres?)
Ih Ah, sure thing, if that doesn't make one smile than I don't know what will ! And of course Anneke, what a fantastic voice is that ...
Great reaction. Devin is a bit of a musical savant. He has zero voice training and just figured out on his own how to produce all those different vocal colours. He also is known for his "wall of sound' style of composition, which you picked up on. I'm not an expert per se, but I can try and help explain what Devin is doing with his harsh vocals. Devin's harsh vocals are mainly produced using fry scream technique where the true vocal folds are held closed (but not phonating) to pressurize the air stream, allowing it to rattle tissues higher up in the vocal tract. Fry screams produce those distinct static-y overtones and usually sound much 'higher' than false cord screams/growls (which are done with the true folds held open, creating a much larger resonant space). Devin also uses vocal distortion on his clean singing sometimes, where the false folds pick up some of the air pressure from the true folds while they are phonating. This is why Devin often uses distorted singing as a transition between clean singing and his pure fry scream, because the techniques for distortion and fry screaming are sort of related.
You were right to not just try to imitate him off the cuff. It's much easier to hurt your voice fry screaming improperly than with false cord growling.
Finally, there are a lot of metal singers today who have big vocal toolkits and who use the wide array of tones they can produce for storytelling. It's something Devin, Floor Jansen, Tatiana from Jinjer (who uses a lot more colours in other songs you haven't heard yet), Courtney Laplante (from Spiritbox) and many other metal singers share in common. A few others you might find interesting are Brittney Slayes from Unleash the Archers (Tonight We Ride shows off her insane range, power and super high belting abilities), Cristina Scabbia from Lacuna Coil (Swamped live from the 119 show is a great introduction to her voice), and Marcela Bovio of Stream of Passion (Out in the Real World live is a good intro for her).
Heavi Devi as hes called and Unleash the archers are from British Colombia. UTA started at the University of Victoria.
OMG you were gone for so long and seeing you back with one of my favorite song ever is a gift ahah
Deadhead, and especially this performance, is what got me into Devin, I can't not have goosebumps when listening to this video
The one thing i love about vocal reacts to DT is that as a DT fan we know what's coming and to watch people react to his incredible high note range always makes me smile
Loved your reaction to this song! What an awesome vocal range, and as agile as a top level gymnast. My opinion on why he switches so abruptly, from operatic to high pitched growl/scream in this song, is that he is conveying precisely the emotions at that breaking point in a disagreement between loved ones, where shit turns nasty from both players, and all bets are off. We have all been in that moment, when someone we are deeply in love with goes beyond reason, and shit turns real effing ugly, (vice-versa)!
Devvy is one of the most limitless, astonishing and utterly stunning vocalists I have ever had the fortune to hear. From Vai throu Strapping Young Lad to eveything else, just never a dull moment. Love watching people discover him, jaws dropped in awe like "how is this possible? Why have I never heard of him?"
You had me laughing so much with this reaction that I had to subscribe! Great video
I'm not like huge into his music catalog, so I don't know a whole lot, but every single thing I've seen and listened to from Devin just shows he's an incredible showman and just has an astonishing command of his voice
Thanks for leaving the "guitar" part in. Shows character and we have so few floating around the interweb these days.
Good stuff - genuine.
I appreciate this! I felt it was pretty funny and it keeps me modest. :D
Great reaction and analysis, Cristina. Love it! ❤
Yes! More! More Devin please!!!!
I saw him play this live in Cardiff in 2019 and I cried my eyes out. What a damn trip his set is
C: "I'm not a guitarist"
.... I just have a PRS hanging on the wall... as art.
C: ":Devin. He Good. Good. Devin"
Me: "Dying... I am... Laughing. Dying"
Devin is a gift from a mischievous deity... we are met to ponder and perplex over what-and-how he does it, all while thoroughly enjoying the content and flow of his music. Devin is a very strong flavonoid (he would object if I called him a drug) which is best taken when you have an entire afternoon to digest the content... it takes time for the palate to clear after a heavy dose of Devi.
I love his screams, but I think I like his cleans better... which astounds me.
Usually the doctoral level head-n-neck physiology nerd in me works to grasp the upper-resp-tract machinations that a metal singer is using.
In Devin's case, I just envision a vocal-character-artist who has great pitch and can fry on top of anything.
But his cleans are absolutely fog-and-fire piercing in quality and support.... the kind of voice that teen-age-me used to pierce the tumult of a forest-fire-fighting line, back in the 70's... ah, to be young and indestructible again.
Good to meet you.
Enjoy your passage through the world of metal singers.
- - Blind Doc Jones
Watching Dev live is a religious expierence and his vocals are always on point.
With all the years singing in SYL his voice was getting wrecked and then he started taking better care of it... and that is why he can sing so cleans and so hard. Amazing technique and control. This live version of this song is unrivalled... just immense
Great reaction, but I want to add especially that I really appreciate the little extras in the end where mr. side-camera guy adds information and informs you. It's cooler seeing the intake and processing of wee titbits of information. Do keep that up! And I do hope you will keep the videos going; your reactions are really enjoyable. :)
I'll let Mr Side-Camera guy know ;)
New follower!
The Mad Genius...welcome!!
(Can't wait to see which of his library you do next...do enjoy!)
So much emotion in his voice, and face. The way he fluidly moves from texture to texture over time is something unique to him, and really drives home the emotional content of his lyrics. He really does paint pictures with his voice.
So good to see you back on the interwebs!.
This is very restrained for Heavy Devy. If you want to hear more of his range, try "Bring on the young" from his Strapping Young Lad days. Y'know: the usual operatic to growls to screams across five octaves type of thing.
Also, The Death of Music from this same concert is simply staggering.
From hearing this on a random stream, to shazam-ing it, then overlistening it for days, and then finding your video of your caring and guiding opinion...can only bring me tears of joy. What a unique experience in a world where people think they heard and seen it all
Welcome to the rabbit hole that is Devin. This entire concert is absolutely worth a listen from start to finish - the first half is the Ziltoid concept album, which is practically theatre, then the second half is a 'best of' as requested by the fans. What makes it even more impressive is a) the length of the concert, and b) Dev was quite ill at this point, yet still pulled it out of the bag for hours on end. Once you've backtracked through all Devin's solo stuff, then you can get into the chaos that is Strapping Young Lad as well.
Devy is a unique amazing artist, musician, artiste, lyricist par excellence.
His cross genre appeal is unreal.... Check out Ziltoid the Omniscient, War Grace and of course the seminal "live at plovdiv"
Welcome to the Devy rabbit hole 👍👍👍👍
You need to watch his live performance of Kingdom (the EMG one). The transition from operatic to scream is breathtaking
Based on his own words, Devin gets an idea of the sound/colors (he's syneshetic) he wants and then figures out how to get there, both with his vocals and instrumentations. He's had little formal vocal education, most of what he does self-admittedly, comes from trying to achieve the desired sound till it hurt, at which point he'd stop and try another way. So this switch is likely a product of his personal acquired style and methods.... He actually has even more power in his cleans than what he shows here - if you checked out the album version of Kingdom (from Epicloud), or a YT video of him doing Bring Him Home from Les Mis, you'd see more of that part of his range. He's an amazing listen and since he keeps doing different things that interest him, there' awesomeness in his catalog for many different tastes, beyond metal.
I've always loved the song 'Numbered' by Devin Townsend, there's a video on CZcams of him doing it live, and at the time he had a guest vocalist on a few records called Anneke van Giersbergen. The story is that Anneke's band and Devin's band were on the same record label, and Devin was simply fascinated by not only the purity, but the power of her voice. She was the fan girl of him, and he was the infatuated mega star, blown away by her talent.
It was a great time for music!
"Wall of Sound" That's a pretty accurate description of his music and he is well known for it.
Devin's the best. Glad you enjoyed it!
A+ and I'm glad that I found your channel
9:44 I learned today that Devin good, scream good. Welcome for watching.
hahaha
Excellent reaction! I love how every vocalist who listens to Devin's work sees/hears something different. What a treasure.
If you're exploring metal vocalists, you NEED to experience Ronnie James Dio in Stargazer, by Rainbow. Absolutely soaring and magical.
Thank you for your work and for sharing!
Fun Fact about this performance. He was coming of a/still in the middle of a cold.
That whole concert is an awesome experience. Devin is all around amazing.
So many things, great things, amazing things, can be said about Devon as a musician. One that really stands out with this song is how he's able to get discernible pitch and melody out of his screams. Try watching his EMG TV performance of Kingdom that really puts his vocals front and center over the instruments.
I bet he would be fun to play D&D with haha, like just the facial expressions and wild things he could do with his voice, it would be great
Even though this is not my jam in particular, It is really nice to have you back doing these videos Cristina.
He's an INSANE guitar player, too. He did a recent interview where he melted the faces off Rick beane as well as John petrucci and tosin abasi and he blew them all away. I didn't even know he was a good singer.
His vocals performances are just a pleasure to watch. Love Devinn just seems like a cool guy. In addition to his breathtaking vocals, 😜he is playing the guitar at the same time. While his guitar parts are not very hard to play, it's crazy to achieve those vocals and coordinate anything else, let alone playing cords on a guitar, in time, with a band. WTF! Hope he comes to Boston soon.
would like to hear you cover this, you are nailing it.
"I have never heard any Devin Townsend before .." .. This is going to be good!
Touring Australia in a minute too, miss it and hate yourself for decades, seriously.
I would recommend watching his song Why, perhaps from the live concert in London. It highlights a greater variety of his singing talent plus his humor.
I would rather recommend the quarantine version to show him in more personal setting.
The Vocals sang during the breakdown are "Got no wings, Gossamer wings" Also as others have said the reason for his nasal thing here is because he was quite ill. There are many other cleaner performances of this song vocally but the fact that this was at the royal albert hall, and he still managed this performance makes it arguably more epic.
Analysis good. Devin do scream good. Good Cristina.
we want more vocal reactions from you! 🙂
Devin Townsend is the best metal/progressive/alternative singer/guitarist/artist in the world imo.
The transformation from his old band Strapping Young Lad to this is mind blowing.
This was part of his ziltoid at the albert hall shows, i was very lucky and my mate got me a ticket to go, Devin was spectacular.
12:41 The words for the "chant" there is "Got no wings, gossamer wings".
Another GREAT, in playing and singing too ❤💪
the embroidered eyes on that jacket are insanely cool
Look up Townsend doing Kingdom, it will absolutely blow your mind.
Couple of notes regarding this particular performance:
1) it was in the middle of a 'by request' set that he performed after a full album set that preceded a short interlude. So this song was around 2 hours into the night.
2) it was in the UK and he had his customary UK cold, so his voice was a little rough (there were a few unintential bits of grit that creeped in). However it's my favourite performance because him pushing through the cold seems to fit thematically and adds to the atmosphere of the performance compared to a more technically pristine performance!
Welcome to the world of Devy. You'll have no shortage of requests for other tracks 😁The most impressive thing about his music is that while not everyone feels it, if you do feel it, it always feels like it gets you right in the core of your being. Perhaps its the wall of sound or the mass of reverb on his voice, but it's just something you feel with your entire body.
agree... despite the cold this was his best performance of this song
I'm a bit late to this, but in case you hadn't read this in other comments yet, this was from his Royal Albert Hall show in April 2015. The show had 2 parts to it: the first part was a playthrough of one of his newest albums at the time, and they were dressed up much more in character for that part. This song came from the second half, which was a "by request" setlist as voted on by fans online. He comments on the DVD that for this part of the show, he told the band to just wear whatever they're comfortable in, hence the band t-shirts and him wearing a hoodie, be cause it was the chill and fun part of the show for the fans.
Recently I can't recommend Legion by TesseracT enough, amazing vocal, great song writing. Old farv then I would love to have some Japanese City Pop like 4.00 AM Taeko Onuki or Cat's Eye by Anri. More extreme vocal then Demolisher by Slaughter to Prevail is amazing. Another recent great would be Down by the River from Baldur's Gate 3 game. Also Deadhead by Devin Townsend never truly clicked with me before but your video is the first that really helped me see how involved Devin Townsend is with each line he sings. I mean I can see how skillful he is but seeing his face morphed like that not only for vocal and visual effects but also how Devin can put himself in first person or third person emotionally and very self aware during live performance, incredible. Make sense since his discography is so long and seem to never run out of personal creative touch. Would love to see you upload more by the way. Cheers.
"Depends on how cool you wanna be"- very very true!
Deadhead- Live In Plovdiv is my preference for this song. When he screams at the end he shifts pitch mid-way through. It is my favorite vocal section of all time
Took boy #2 (he was upper teens) to Devin Townsend. He took home a shirt "lower mid tier Prog Metal" shirt from the show.
Arrangement is incredible, Devins vocals, emotion and expressions are incredible, the lyrics are incredible. Seeing Devin perform this particular song was something that I truly dreamt about and when it happened it did not disappoint one bit.
Oh, and also, I know y'all already did a take on Spiritbox, but the Circle with Me live one-take ending always gets me.
If not, maybe Sleep Tokens take/cover/feature on 'Is It Really You?' originally by Loathe (the acoustic Sleep Token version, not the mashup). Leo's voice is a fairytale. Such a beautiful song.
G'day Oz,
Devin has an incredible and broad catalog. It's worth a look.
I'd also suggest you to hear the studio version of this, I think the "You are so vicious (...)" line is even more impressive as he doesn't stop while transitioning from cleans to harshes
Screaming is necessary in order to be able to express the full palette of human emotions. You'd rarely find a painter whose never touched the color red. Words cannot describe the feeling of power you get once you're able to sing even remotely like this. ❤😅
I think what makes this rendition that everyone reacts to and is so popular even more impressive is Dev was recovering from the flu at this show and still knocked it out of the freaking park.
Devin Garrett Townsend is a 51yr Old Canadian madman who sometimes likes to make music. He is Bipolar and has synesthesia (he sees musical notes as colors and shapes). He is a reluctant singer but he can sing and has range over 5 octaves and 3 notes (C2 to F#7). In his youth a voice teacher told him his technique is wrong and he will lose his voice if he keeps singing like that. He has since put out at least 27 studio albums, half a dozen live albums across wildly different genres from Extreme metal to Country/Gospel to ambient, new-age electronica etc.
I won't ask for a reaction but instead I'd like you to watch his podcast interview with Elizabeth Zharoff. It's slightly on the longer side but a must listen if you wish to explore his vast musical output. He goes on to explain his struggles with substance abuse, mental health, physical health, his unorthodox singing techniques etc.
He's only 5'9" supposedly, but he's still a giant! He's incredible at guitar, vocals, writing, and arranging.
One of the best concerts you can go to is a Devy concert. Not only is he musically brilliant, but he's damn funny to boot
Highly recommend checking out Devin's rendition of Bring Him Home. It's absolutely incredible.
Devin scream good 😂
Devin is someone I've known about for years but never really dug into until very, very recently. Dude is unreal talented if you dig that genre. His music definitely isn't for everyone but if it is, it's amazing.
EDIT: Also, just found your channel and haven't had a chance to look into it (you may have already done this) but another good metal vocalist that shifts between incredibly beautiful cleans and distorted voice is the lead vocalist/guitarist for Opeth, Mikael Akerfeldt. Hearing him go from something like Windowpane to Heir Apparent doesn't even seem possible.
Wall of sound is a perfect way to describe Devins music.
On first hearing its just full on. But the more you listen. The more you hear.
If you want to see his playful side and have great singing.
Then you need to listen to Why from Order of Magnitude (Empath live) in london.
He is wearing the outfit because Ché said he had to.
Devin Townsend is my spirit animal