The Great Misdirect Tour *BTBAM* (show)

Date: January 26, 2010
Venue: The Opera House
Location: Toronto Ontario Canada
Promoter: Against The Grain
Bands: Scale The Summit/The Devin Townsend Project/Cynic/Between The Buried And Me

Scale The Summit
Before the show started, staring at the stage you see in the guitar rigg a light up bar that flashes Scale The Summit in different colours. Then you look up to see the banner which is the album cover of Carving Desert Canyons. I was excited to see this band since it was my first time. It was also the second time this band has came to Toronto (first being on the Progressive Nation Tour with Dream Theater). Second show in Toronto and to a sold out crowd of about 850. When they hit stage right away they performed there instrumental music covering the majority of their latest album. They were excellent musicians with lots of movement for such technical music. The bass player Jordan Eberhardt head banged a lot and guitarist Travis LeVrier also moved his body to the beat. Other then that they didnt have much movement but that didnt matter, they played some great music and the crowd was really into it. These guys have got to come back again to tour Canada.

Setlist:
1.Age Of The Tide
2.Sargasso Sea
3.Dunes
4.The Great Plains
5.City In The Sky
6.Omni

Official
Myspace

The Devin Townsend Project
The return of our fellow Canadian god. Devin Townsend came on stage letting us know he is representing us Canadians on this tour (like he always did when I saw him). Right away he got into it with Disruptr but distorted it to sound much better than the album version. After that he got into Supercrusher!. This is when everyone in the venue went wild and a huge pit opened up on the floor. The real surprise was not the pit, but the fact that Devin sang Anneke van Giersbergen's part of the song and hit every note. I have never heard him sing so well in my life. The rest of the set everyone got into and a pit would always open up. True Canadian love right there. Devin also announced that he was going to be doing another tour soon. All I can say to this is that I can't wait and WELCOME BACK.

Setlist:
1.Disruptr
2.Supercrush!
3.Kingdom
4.Truth
5.By Your Command

Official
Myspace

Cynic
The second last band to play, Cynic are also a band that not to long ago got back together to create some great new music for us. They performed a good amount of songs for us progressive fans. One song they played was Evolutionary Sleeper. This song is one that I have loved for awhile now so it was great to finally see it live. What was neat is that they had us do a yoga stretch halfway during their set. Cynic was mellow, great music to calm us down for the rest of the show. I can't wait to hear the EP when it comes out.

Official
Myspace

Between The Buried And Me
BTBAM, BTBAM The final band of the night, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME playing in support of their newest release The Great Misdirect. This was a true tour for this album. They played 2 songs off this album to start off the show and then they played a few other tracks from other albums. Kids went crazy when they played Alaska. When they played there 'last song' Swim To The Moon their merch guy/guest vocalist Chuck Johnson came on stage and did what he did on the recorded version of the song. Kids went wild wanting more BTBAM after this 17:54 min song. A minute went by BTBAM, BTBAM kids where shouting and then out came the band. They thanked the crowd for coming and supporting them, and then they played White Walls which made everyone in the venue excited. The majority of people knew the lyrics to the song and were singing along. Crowd surfing and circle pits opened up for this final song. Everyone should go pick up The Great Misdirect or any other Between The Buried And Me album.

Setlist:
1.Obfuscation
2.Disease, Injury,Madness
3.More Of Myself To Kill
4.Ants of the Sky
5.Alaska
6.Swim To The Moon
7.White Walls

Myspace

Side Notes:
Every band is great so go buy all there albums
Devin Townsend IS BACK
Everyone knew who Paul Waggoner was but when Tommy Giles and Blake Richardson walked by, nobody went nuts.
Jordan Eberhardt and Travis LeVrier of Scale The Summit are nice guys.



CK