It’s been almost seven years since Between the Buried and Me and Devin Townsend Project last toured together. At the beginning of 2010, both of these bands hit the road with the ever-so-airy Cynic soon after they had released Traced in Air. Between the Buried and Me themselves had unleashed The Great Misdirect and were regularly closing out their small venue shows with the 18-minute epic “Swim to the Moon,” having taken guest vocalist Chuck Johnson on tour with them as their merch guy. Devin Townsend had also released Addicted the year prior, full of vim and vigor and exclamation points, in all its catchy pop-prog sound and Futurama excerpts. Playing “Kingdom” live was a relatively new thing to the Project setlist at the time, but its re-recording a couple of years later for Epicloud cemented its beautiful resolution in our hearts and minds forever.

At the time, it seemed strange that Cynic would open for any band, let alone a band they had inspired. But Between the Buried and Me were blazing a trail in the progressive scene that has seen little slowdown since then, with three releases and a seemingly-neverending tour schedule. Devin Townsend was on the cusp of releasing two highly-anticipated albums in an erratic quadrilogy that begin with Ki and would end with the metaphorical shit-taking in Deconstruction and the contrastingly somber Ghost, which may have been a much different, perhaps more pleasant, shit-taking.

Between the Buried and Me have been playing material from their latest in Coma Ecliptic [review], but are playing the album from beginning to end for the sake of the Transcending the Coma Tour. Though the album is solid, there’s something that doesn’t reproduce well in a live setting, with the performance losing steam about two-thirds of the way through before picking up as it ends.

Devin Townsend, as always, played a well-intentioned mix from his expansive catalog, even forgoing the desire to weigh heavily towards the new Project release in Transcendence [review] and grabbed a little of everything. He even lovingly serenaded the fine people of Chicago with an acoustic rendition of “Ih-Ah!,” which of course elicited a massive singalong.

The tour’s still going on, ending in Vancouver on October 15th, but a second leg will take over Europe with Leprous replacing Fallujah as the opening act. Don’t miss this tour.

Photos below.

Between the Buried and Me

Devin Townsend Project

For more from this photographer, visit Kyle Gaddo on Flickr.

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