We are Devo! Aging New Wavers rock like young’uns in Des Moines

So, the Devo show in Des Moines on Saturday was great. My initial motivation, as outlined in this post, was to see a couple of old friends and finally allow 25 years of attempted indoctrination to drive me to see what the fuss is all about. It only took a song or two for my curiosity to evolve into excitement. It was the best show I had seen in a long time and left me wondering when we could see the band again.

Seeing the show with these two friends gave me a window into Devo obsession, allowing me to see the show through my own relatively-neophyte eyes as well as those of uber-fans. While I saw a performance by five musicians who were unbelievably tight with songs that seemed nostalgia-laced and timeless all at once, they saw ever-so-subtle nuances that altered the meanings of those performances. I saw lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh emulate the same sort of robotic mannerisms that are familiar from dozens of videos, they saw him make a subtle shift that he hadn’t made before and then puzzled over the meaning behind such a departure from the norm.

One could find fodder for fun-making there, but that’s not my intent. As I mentioned in that last post, Devo is one of the few bands that created its own mythology and did so in a way that enhanced rather than detracted from the music. The songs and performance were strong enough to grab my interest and hold it for the entire 90-minute set, but the extra-musical elements — costume changes, backing videos and more — will cement that hold on my attention and lead me to spend more time seeking out more information about those trappings.

The set was, as expected, light on new songs and heavy on the classics. They opened with “What We Do” from the new album, Something For Everybody, and also played “Don’t Shoot” and “Fresh” from that disc. After taking care of those within the first five songs, it was a mix of classics, near hits and deeper cuts that pleased my long-time fan friends: Peek a Boo, Going Under, Girl U Want, Whip It, Planet Earth, Satisfaction, Secret Agent Man, Uncontrollable Urge, Mongoloid, Jocko Homo,  Smart Patrol/ Mr. DNA, Gates of Steel, Freedom of Choice and Beautiful World.

The last two were the encore, the final song of which featured an appearance by Booji Boy — Mark Mothersbaugh in a strange boy mask singing in a high voice and telling a strange but amusing story about Michael Jackson.

With that experience under my belt, it’s time to go back through the back catalog again, and perhaps seek out some rarities to get a more complete picture. One worry: the band really rocked last night, playing a tight set that struck the right balance between keyboards and the deft guitar work of Bob Mothersbaugh. As I contemplate older recordings (save for the earliest songs on the band’s first album), they seem to skew a bit more toward the keyboard end of the spectrum. Perhaps live Devo is the best Devo for me. Only time will tell. Suffice to say that I was very pleasantly surprised and left the show considering myself a bona fide fan.