Devin Townsend - Official Bootleg 2000 (2000)
Backed up by the lovable lasses in Strapping Young Lad as his live band, this release is interesting in the way that it captures Devin Townsend's solo music while he was still getting his feet wet as a solo artist. As always, the human drum-machine Gene Hoglan and bassist Byron Stroud (with such a sick tone) do great, guitarist Jed Simon isn't typically given time to shine, and just everyone in general pulls off the songs live quite well, but there's no real reason to listen to this over the studio albums, as Devin Townsend sometimes strains to hit notes, and the music as a whole isn't as powerful without his intense wall of sound production style to back it. It's worth it to hardcore Hevy Devy fans to check this out, but for everyone else, Devin has too much great work in his discography to waste your time listening to a fuckin' bootleg recording of a live show, excuse me, a bootleg recording of a live show WITHOUT a live performance of "Life" which, sure, this bootleg was released officially, but still. Fuck it, y'all.
6/10
