The Retinal Circus is a live album by Canadian musician Devin Townsend. It was released on September 30, 2013, in Europe, and on October 29, 2013, in North America. The audio and video material were recorded at Roundhouse, London, on October 27, 2012, when Townsend performed a special one-night-only concert celebrating and covering his 20-year musical career.

In November 2011, after performing a series of special Devin Townsend Project shows, Devin Townsend revealed his plan to perform a one-off concert in London, England, that would cover his musical career from mid-1990s up to that point. Townsend stated that he wanted to create a "more than musical" show which included a storyline, multiple performers and special effects. Later he said that the concert would be recorded for future release.

The concert lasted approximately three hours, and it was divided into two parts, with an intermission in between.The band consisted of the same personnel as the recent years' Devin Townsend Project line-up, and the special guests were Anneke van Giersbergen and Jed Simon, with Steve Vai hosting the show via pre-recorded video projected onto screens. The setlist was focused heavily on material from Epicloud and a few other albums from Townsend's catalogue; the setlist included no songs from Terria, Accelerated Evolution, Ki and Ghost. Townsend also performed, against his current principles,two Strapping Young Lad songs. He later stated that this was because of the career-spanning nature of the concert, and playing those two songs was a "closure for him and Strapping Young Lad". He also wanted to "respect the legacy of the band" and to reconnect and perform again with Jed Simon.

The concert was one of the most prepared Devin Townsend shows ever, with over a year of pre-production, and it was recorded in high definition with a higher budget and a more professional approach to production than the previous live release, By a Thread. 5000 people saw the sold out performance, and the concert was also streamed live through Livemusicstage.com.

Universal Music
02:40:32

 

Technical Specs
Blu-ray
BD-50 Dual-Layer Disc

Video Resolution/Codec
1080i/AVC MPEG-4

Aspect Ratio(s)
1.78:1

Audio Formats
English LPCM 2.0 (48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit)

Subtitles/Captions
None

Supplements
Retinal - Behind The Mask