It was two weeks ago today that I saw a show by the reunited Sebadoh. I really enjoyed the show and fully expected to post something the next day. Alas, two weeks later, I realize the show was kind of a singular moment. I expected it to fuel a renewed interest in the band, that I would be listening to their CDs non-stop for the foreseeable future.

Instead, that was really all I needed. What happened?

At one time I loved Sebadoh. Top five band, easily. I have all of the studio albums, the vinyl singles, the Sentridoh side project, Folk Implosion, the Shrimper tapes… even the Belt Buckle single (before I knew to be excited because it featured Eric Matthews from Cardinal). One thing you’ll

notice is that my love of Sebadoh came down heavily on the side of Lou Barlow. I could take or leave (and usually leave) Eric Gaffney’s noisier, more out-there contributions, and wasn’t sad to see him depart the band before Bakesale.

That album is the band’s high water mark, an album I’ve listened to hundreds of times. It did everything a Sebadoh album should, with a mix of loud, off-kilter rock and quiet, contemplative weepers. No Gaffney, and in fact, Jason Loewenstein, the third leg of the stool, ramped up his game to be Barlow’s near-equal in the songwriting department.

But that was followed by Harmacy, a misguided stab at more mainstream success (to these ears anyway), that, while it included some Sebadoh classics from both Barlow and Loewenstein (“On Fire,” “Ocean” and “Prince-S” among them), also had it’s share of filler. By the time of the band’s self-titled swan song, I had largely left it behind.

Looking back, I can point to the decreasing quality of the output, and the decreasing quantity, for that matter. The band seemed to know it was near the end. After the frenetic 90s, the aughts were largely devoid of product. A Loewenstein solo album, two Barlow solo albums and a couple of EPs, and that was it. And none of it lived up to Sebadoh at its best.

Fair enough. But when the band reunited, and pledged a set list that leaned heavily on its best work (Bakesale and Harmacy), I was in. The show started off like they were playing my dream set: “Skull,” “Rebound,” “Ocean” and “Magnet’s Coil” all hit hard and had me fully engaged. Then came Loewenstein’s part of the set. I found I was more excited to hear his songs, because they were the ones that had aged best. Barlow’s sugary confections didn’t pack the same punch as these disjointed excursions. But Loewenstein seemed hell-bent on pounding any subtlety out of the songs, shouting his way through the hooks and playing them at breakneck speed in pummeling fashion.
What I was left with was a last hurrah for Barlow’s songs, my reactions based more on nostalgia than anything else, and a missed opportunity for Loewnstein’s. Barlow’s songs simply haven’t aged well for me. Kudos to him for finding dozens of ways to sing about heartache, but those are largely teen-age emotions that I left behind decades ago. I’m more likely to dig up Loewnstein’s gems, these diamonds in the fluff just begging for their own playlist.

I’ll still play Sebadoh from time to time — “Magnet’s Coil” and “Rebound” are near-required playlist inclusions — but the fire I expected to be rekindled will instead remain a pile of low-burning embers.

R. Stevie Moore, who has recorded and released a reported 400 albums on his own and through very small, boutique labels, had never toured before the current schedule of dates that took him across the U.S. this summer.

Knowing little more than Moore’s name and that he was a quirky artist with an eclectic catalog, I supposed that this was simply in keeping with his eccentricity. But, having seen Moore perform Sunday night in Iowa City, I have a new theory: He didn’t tour because nobody bothered to ask him.

There is a reason that Moore has self-released his music. Actually, there are two. Taking no credit away from his do-it-yourself ethos, I’m sure that he was content, if not resolute, in releasing his own work. But that work is at best a bit off kilter, at worst nearly unlistenable.

All of that was on display in the live setting. Moore was clad in a pair of red pajamas and a green silk jacket with “Brooklyn” embroidered across the chest. He was backed by the Brooklyn band Tropical Ooze, an unfortunate name for a perplexing band. After a short set during which the band tried on a number of styles, none with much success, Moore joined them on stage. He played bass and read his lyrics off sheets stacked on a music stand (one item on the merch table was a $60 collection of CDRs promising 922 songs; given that output, he can be forgiven for needing assistance remembering his own work).

Things started promisingly. The songs had a melodic thread and instrumental verve that Tropical Ooze lacked when playing its own material. Moore was an oddly captivating presence, like a recluse who stepped out to get the morning paper only to be surprised when an instrument was thrust in his hands and a crowd materialized to watch his performance. But when he played the closest thing to a hit he has penned, the mid-80s oddity “I Like to Stay at Home,” it was clear this was not going to be a top-shelf show. Moore’s voice, never a clarion of pop perfection, seems to have largely abandoned him, leaving the singer to shout his lyrics angrily, changing the tenor of the song from content to sociopathic.

After just a handful of songs, the musicians left the stage. Tropical Ooze’s members took up spots in the crowd and Moore returned alone. He grabbed a guitar and started pacing back and forth across the stage, speaking (one couldn’t call it singing) into the microphone each time he passed. His strums occasionally resolving into chords, he began lyric that seemed to be about perusing the menu in a seafood restaurant. Great pop songs have been built on less – this wasn’t one of them.

When the next “song” continued in similar fashion, the lure of the pillow proved to be too great. Perhaps it was seeing Moore in his pajamas, but I was more interested at that point in sleep than in giving the mental energy necessary to find anything redeeming in Moore’s performance. So, take this criticism with a grain of salt. It’s possible that he pulled it together and absolutely killed in the latter half of his set. For the sake of the couple dozen people who were braver/more dedicated than I, I certainly hope that was the case.

If there is a silver lining, it is that I spent some time before the show familiarizing myself with Moore and his work. His is a name that floated around my periphery. I was aware of him but not necessarily his achievement. His web site has a lot of free material to peruse, and I’ll spend some more time with it in the coming weeks. Interest in Moore seems to be peaking, as far as that goes, with a documentary film in the works and some of his most high-profile releases having come in the past couple of years. It makes sense; when you last as long as Moore has, that simple fact generates interest. But it’s a shame that Moore wasn’t coaxed out onto the road a decade or two ago when he could perform in a way that lived up to, rather than tore down, his reputation.

Having driven four hours to see them last time, undertaking a one-hour jaunt to catch the Baseball Project was a no-brainer. That first show was so good, it still ranks among my favorite shows two years later.

Last night, the Baseball Project added another show to that list. Improbable as it may seem for someone who has only a passing interest in baseball (the fact that current coverage of my favorite team boasts headlines like “What has happened to the Dodgers?” doesn’t help), I love this band.

Most of that affection comes because of my being a big fan of its two principles: Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey. I’ve been a fan of McCaughey’s longer, having picked up my first Young Fresh Fellows LP back in ’86, but I’ve become a huge fan of Wynn’s over the past decade. The two together, augmented by the stoic Peter Buck (playing bass in a busman’s holiday of sorts from his other band) and the comely Linda Pitmon (that’s Mrs. Wynn to you), are dynamite. These may be songs about baseball, but they are Wynn and McCaughey songs first, and the tunes found on the band’s two platters (three when you count the limited Broadside Ballads collection) are among the best work either has done.

Thursday night at the Rock Island Brewing Co. in Rock Island, Ill., the band faced a line-up change: Peter Buck was out (benched? on the DL?), and his R.E.M. compatriot Mike Mills was in. Casting no aspersions on Buck, one of my favorite musicians of the past 30 years, Mills more than held his own. Playing his natural instrument (while guitarist Buck is not) and contributing those trademark high harmonies (where Buck doesn’t sing a lick), he brought an added dimension to the sound. Couple that with the addition of a keyboard player this time out, and this was even more musically satisfying than the last time out.

The band stuck to its two officially released albums at the start, opening with “Past Time” from Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. They also tore through “Ted Fucking Williams,” “Gratitude (For Curt Flood),” “Broken Man,” “Jackie’s Lament,” and “Harvey Haddix” from that first album. The second album, High and Inside, yielded “1976,” “Panda and the Freak,” “Fair Weather Fans” (with a new verse from Mills to sub for Buck’s deadpan shout-out to the Washington Senators), “Don’t Call Them Twinkies,” “Chin Music,” “Ichiro Goes to the Moon” and “The Straw That Stirs the Drink.”

McCaughey only fronted one non-Baseball Project song, ripping through the Minus 5 romp “Aw Shit, Man!” Two, if you count the impromptu cover of Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone” that came between the set and the encore (“I’m not going off stage,” McCaughey said. “It’s too much work.”). Wynn, in contrast, had a lot more mic time, doing the Dream Syndicate classics “That’s What You Always Say” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” as well as his solo track “Amphetamine.”

The best crowd response, however, came for the millionaire among us. Mills opened the encore with a spirited version of R.E.M.’s “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville.” The band seemed to be having a lot of fun on the classic, and it was fun to see Mills play the song in the kind of clubs his band left behind a long time ago.

The band stuck around after the show to chat and sign things, and we had long discussions about music, baseball and the incredible response to the band. McCaughey engaged in some analysis of the band members’ first-pitch performance at a number of major and minor league ballgames, and marveled at the spread afforded the band in a luxury suite at three consecutive Milwaukee Brewers games. They’re among the nicest people in rock, and deserve whatever success — or meat and cheese trays — that brings.

Back when we were dating, I wooed my wife with occasional mixtapes (yes, I’m that old). On an early one, I included (perhaps even began with) Freedy Johnston’s “Two Lovers Stop.” I did so because it’s a great song, a driving little pop number that was among the most accessible on his then-new album. Listening once, she asked me, “Should I be worried that you put a song on here about a couple committing suicide together?” Somewhat horrified, I assured her that she shouldn’t, and vowed to pay a bit more attention to the lyrical content of the songs I gave her.

That points out, as clearly as anything, that I’m into music for the music. If a clever lyric snags my attention, so much the better, but I need a big fat hook to grab me or all bets are off. Having learned my lesson, I was smart enough a couple of years later to put Johnston’s “You Get Me Lost,” a clear-cut love song, on a subsequent tape.

This came to mind because, as I sat listening to Johnston perform a solo set last night, I was struck by the words to songs I’d heard for 20 years. A song like “Mortician’s Daughter,” performed because he was playing at the Yacht Club, housed in what was once an Iowa City funeral home, has depths that I’d never really plumbed. It’s a melancholy little gem, with keen details about the singer and the girl in question drawing hearts on dusty coffin lids. But, really listening to the song for the first time — as opposed to just hearing the melody and music — I heard the short-story worthy tale being told.

As a writer, I marveled at the economy of Johnston’s lyrics, able to convey complex emotional situations in a line or two.  That’s a big part of why his music continues to resonate. Yes, it lodges in the ear because it’s catch and unique, but it has permanence because there’s always something new to discover and marvel over. In a set that hit high points from throughout his career, he proved himself to be a remarkably consistent  songwriter.

His set (not in exact order): We Will Shine/Remember Me/Lonely Penny/Cruel to Be Kind (Nick Lowe)/The Morticians Daughter/Underwater Life/Don’t Fall in Love with a Lonely Girl/You Get Me Lost/Bad Reputation

My fandom of Marshall Crenshaw has gone on even longer than that for Johnston. I first encountered Crenshaw when I was in high school and checked out the vinyl album Attack of the Killer B’s from my library. It was a compilation of B-sides from Warner Brothers artists, released in 1983. I probably picked it up in 1985 or so, tempted by a rarity by then-new discovery Talking Heads. But it was Crenshaw’s “You’re My Favorite Waste of Time” that hooked me. Oddly, it didn’t lead me to go get his first album, but I did pick up a copy of Downtown on cassette for cheap not long after.

I’ve since acquired Crenshaw’s entire catalog, and save for his last couple of albums that aren’t quite as immediate for me, there’s nary a bad song  in the bunch, and a whole lot of classics. Crenshaw’s set last night began with a mix of relatively recent material, and I found myself appreciating it more in this setting. The hooks aren’t as towering, but like contemporary Nick Lowe, he has found a way to offer a more subtle, no less satisfying take on roots-inflected pop.

As the set continued, he began to salt it with more “old stuff,” playing a good chunk of his debut album. He avoided much of his middle catalog, however, opting only to indulge a shouted request for “Like a Vague Memory” and zipping through “Fantastic Planet of Love” from the underappreciated Life’s Too Short. His guitar playing was stellar and clearly the focus. His vocals took on a jazzier tone, with oft-times different phrasing from what fans have heard on record for years.

His set (Not in order and not complete): Someday Someway/Girls/Cynical Girl/Mary Anne/Like a Vague Memory/Fantastic Planet of Love/What Do You Dream Of?/2541/Dime a Dozen Guy/Television Light/Passing Through/Live and Learn/My Favorite Waste of Time/Something’s Gonna Happen/Nervous Breakdown (Eddie Cochran)/Crying, Waiting, Hoping (Buddy Holly)

The marvel of this show is how intimate it was. Each performed alone standing on a six-inch stage in the corner of what is essentially a basement, about 60 people scattered about taking it in. At one time, each man was slated for bigger things, but each proved to be a blip on the pop culture radar rather than a fixture. That meant a harder life for them, but surely a more creatively satisfying one as well. And it meant being a few feet away from two of the best songwriters of the past 20 years (30 in Crenshaw’s case) for a night of great song after great song.

So, this isn’t a typical review. You can find those elsewhere (a nice one with photos from Chicago here and an accurate one from Minneapolis here.) Instead, this is a view of Guided by Voices filtered through three of my favorite lyrics from songs performed by the band on this tour.

I wish I could give a shit, just a little bit.

–”Lethargy,” Guided by Voices

Of course, Guided by Voices does give a shit, more than a little bit. Why would a truck driver, a graphic artist, an attorney and a recluse reconvene 16 years after their last parting to join someone like Robert Pollard on the road for a month if they didn’t care? If nothing else came across during the two shows I caught this week — Minneapolis on Tuesday and Chicago on Wednesday — it is that this band cares a great deal about rock ‘n’ roll.

The reason they were able to return at all was that their fans do as well. I was pleasantly surprised at the packed houses at both — First Avenue in Minneapolis holds 1,500 and the Riviera in Chicago holds 3,000, and both were seemingly nearly full — and wondered if the band would have broken up in the first place had this many people given a shit back when it was a going concern. These are certainly the largest crowds Guided by Voices has faced in its career, reunion or otherwise, and without a doubt the most that this lineup, which disbanded in 1996, has seen.

All of that is by way of saying that the engine that drives the band and its fans is a deep passion about music. It’s no stretch to consider Pollard an amateur historian or rock ‘n’ roll, and any dedicated fan, who must surely have dozens of Pollard’s records on the shelf, must be as well. That history is brought to bear as the band performs the kind of show its members grew up on. Long on great songs and energy, short on bells and whistles, it is the kind of show that soars or falls based on the strength of the songs and the passion with which they are performed.

And we’re finally here and shit yeah, it’s cool.

–”Echoes Myron,” Guided by Voices

Guided by Voices for so long was a basement/garage entity that when it hit the relative big time of a large indie label and tours in large clubs, its members seemed as awestruck at the turn of events as their fans were in finding a group in the early 1990s that played this kind of music this well. Yes, for fans at these reunion shows, it is unbelievably cool to be afforded one more chance to see the “classic lineup” of the band run through some of its most beloved songs, but the above line packs the most punch when it comes from the point of view from the stage. Shit yeah, it’s amazingly cool to be Pollard or Tobin Sprout or Mitch Mitchell or Greg Demos or Kevin Fennell and to have left your life — if not behind, certainly on pause — for a month while you relive (and, truthfully, greatly exceed) your finest moments as a band.

They are working so hard to recapture and enhance that the only real critique of the show is that the band is trying to hard. Not playing too hard, mind you. Rather, they are reaching for something that never was. Pollard used to do a high kick or two; now he does a dozen or so. He used to jump occasionally and twirl his microphone from time to time. Now, it is nearly incessant. God forbid a 53-year-old man prove that he’s in better shape than most of his audience, right? This mild criticism is simply that he has nothing to prove and yet performs as if everything is at stake.

As far as critique-worthy aspects of the show, that’s the one that’s easiest to take, and it means that these performances truly hit on all levels. One could quibble with the setlist — I wished for deeper cuts from Under the Bushes, Under the Stars, for instance — but it hits nearly all the high points. The songs are performed with emotion and passion and surprising dexterity.

They pulled into economy island
King shit and the golden boys
Plenty more where we came from
Top of the line
Don’t stop now.

“Don’t Stop Now,” Guided by Voices

The only question now, of course, is, what’s next? Is this truly just a reunion, a one-off after which the members will return to their lives? That would be my guess. While it was clear that Pollard reveled in the glow of a crowd the size of which he’ll never see again as a solo artist, he also has grown used to splitting the take in far fewer pieces and seems to revel in the creative freedom that was truly his once he left the GBV name behind (a freedom that has been a debit and a credit to these ears). However, does Mitchell want to go back to driving a truck? Could Demos be content to flip through a scrapbook to relive this brief vacation? Will Fennell be happy returning to whatever it was he was doing? One imagines that the “gee, Bob, these shows are going great… what do you think about sticking together?” conversations already have begun on the bus rides from town to town.

But one reason why the band may well feel like King Shit and the Golden Boys is the expiration date stamped on the entire affair. I’m a huge fan of GBV and Pollard, but I’ve let life get in the way of seeing Pollard’s solo shows in Chicago over the past six years. When word hit that Guided by Voices’ classic lineup was reuniting for what seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime tour, I bought tickets in two cities and arranged airfare in between without much consternation. If the band moves beyond the musical in its emulation of the Who and launches regularly scheduled “farewell” tours, I’m sure my interest, and the resulting willingness to part with cash, will wane.

I sense that Pollard realizes this… and that the reasons why he decided to move on from this lineup in the first place are rising again to the fore. He has nothing left to prove, and can consider this a victory lap that gives the band and its fans a chance at Dr. Phil’s best friend: closure.

So yes, they’re finally here, and it is pretty cool. And no, there aren’t more like them where they came from, because, despite protestations to the contrary, they do care. And because of it, so do we.

Seeing Nick Lowe perform live offers the chance to concentrate more on his songs than the typical listening experience allows. With his CDs spinning in the car or while at work — the two most common venues for listening now, unfortunately — other requirements keep me from giving him my full attention. At Saturday’s show at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, however, he was the main attraction, and as such, full immersion in his songs was easy.

I’ve long known he was great; I’ve been a fan since about 1984 when I picked up Labor of Lust on vinyl as a young teen and followed it up a year later with The Rose of England, thus cementing my fandom. But seeing him perform live for the second time last night, my appreciation for his craft bloomed. His songs sound deceptively simple, but they are the result of significant work to create breezy tunes. It takes a lot of work to appear this effortless.

The night began with a set of eight songs from keyboardist Geraint Watkins. He possesses a soulful voice and a rollicking style on the keys. He might benefit from a full band backing, but he doesn’t need it. Like fellow pianist Keith Jarrett, he accompanies himself with grunts and growls and humming that are a bit distracting at first, but which become endearingly simpatico as the set progresses. A mix of originals and covers, leavened with an occasional aside or tale, make this the perfect set for the self-proclaimed “Warmup Watkins.”

Lowe opened the show with three solo acoustic numbers, opening with the gorgeous new “Stoplight Roses,” following with the old gem “Heart” and the not-quite-so-old “What’s Shaking on the Hill.” The band then came out to join him, the first time he has been accompanied by anyone but Watkins on a tour of the U.S. in some time. Having seem him at this same venue several years ago in solo/duo form, it’s safe for me to say that while the first show was good, this one was spectacular. The band seemed to give Lowe more verve; where as a solo act he tends to perform with a bit of detachment, with the band he leaned into his songs and took things up a notch.

The set was predictable to a point, including plenty of material from the four albums that loosely constitute his “mature” period, but he threw some old gems in as well. “Raging Eyes” from The Abominable Showman was a treat, as was “Raining, Raining” from Nick the Knife. The latter lost the shuffle of the recorded version to become a melancholic reverie that seems to better fit the lyric.

Most of the high points of those later albums were hit, from “I Live on a Battlefield” and “Soulful Wind” from The Impossible Bird to a handful from his latest, At My Age. He also obliged with his hits, turning in “Cruel to be Kind,” “I Knew the Bride” and “Peace, Love and Understanding.” A couple more new songs (I can’t recall the title of the one he confirmed was new, though I can say that it isn’t the oft-performed “I Read a Lot”) rounded out the set. He even brought Watkins out to start the encore to perform a duet on the keyboardist’s lovely “Only a Rose.”

Through it all, deft wordplay and keen sense of melody of Lowe’s songs shone through. He is a master of the internal rhyme, with most of his lines so well-crafted that it’s easy to miss just how intricately constructed they are. “Lately I’ve Let Things Slide” is a prime example. “Smoking I once quit/ Now I’ve got one lit/ I just fell back into it” seems simple on the surface, but in three short, rhyming lines, Lowe conveys the way someone drops their guard and ceases to care after a relationship has ended. “That untouched takeaway/ I brought home the other day/ Has quite a lot to say,” he continues, again capturing that downward spiral with haiku-like mastery.

The result last night of seeing him sing these lines — and doing so with some of the most subtly sophisticated melodies in the business — was like sitting in on a masterclass in songwriting. That his performance amps up the entertainment factor significantly thanks to his droll, British wit and self-deprecating tales, just enhances the overall experience. It’s a gift to his fans that one of his generation’s best songwriters is also one of its better performers.

Lowe performs again tonight, and I’d be tempted to go again. However, I fear (know, really) those breezy asides and seemingly spontaneous quips are the well-turned work of a pro who has honed his bits to razor sharpness. Seeing the same set performed in the same way would shatter the  illusion. I’m content to pretend otherwise. Anyone who hasn’t had the experience, however, should do what they can to take it in. There’s little better out there on the road right now.

So, we’re five days away from a monumental musical event: the debut of the reunited Guided by Voices. The band’s 1992-96 lineup will kick off a 20-date tour at the Texas Palladium Showroom in Dallas on Wednesday, Sept. 29, hitting Austin the next night before hitting Las Vegas for the Matador at 21 event that led to the reunion.

I’ll catch a couple of shows in October, and am excited to see this lineup. I obviously haven’t seen the band since its 2004 exit, and saw this version only once, at South by Southwest in 1996.

As anticipation builds, I have wondered what the band will play. According to early word, the band will draw exclusively from four albums — Propeller, Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes and Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. That omits Vampire on Titus, which was released between Propeller and Bee Thousand, and several tracks released on singles and elsewhere.

Assuming that they stick to the four albums mentioned, here is a 37-song dream set list. This is in chronological order only, so other than assuming they’ll open with “A Salty Salute” and close with “Don’t Stop Now,” the rest would just be conjecture.

Over the Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox
Weed King
Quality of Armor
Exit Flagger
14 Cheerleader Coldfront
On the Tundra
Hardcore UFOs
Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
Tractor Rape Chain
Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory
Hot Freaks
Echos Myron
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Queen of Cans and Jars
I Am a Scientist
A Salty Salute
Watch Me Jumpstart
They’re Not Witches
Game of Pricks
A Good Flying Bird
Pimple Zoo
Auditorium
Motor Away
My Valuable Hunting Knife
King and Caroline
Striped White Jets
Blimps Go 90
Cut-Out Witch
The Official Ironman Rally Song
No Sky
Your Name is Wild
Acorns & Orioles
Underwater Explosions
Don’t Stop Now
It’s Like Soul Man
Drag Days
Sheet Kickers

The list includes some songs that weren’t among my favorites at the time but which have become treasured — “On the Tundra,” “They’re Not Witches,” “No Sky” and “Drag Days” among them — that I hope hear with this new appreciation in play. The beauty of this is that band leader Robert Pollard has cherry picked the band’s strongest era here. While I’d love to hear a couple of early songs like “Drinker’s Peace” or some rockers from Mag Earwhig!, they really can’t go wrong here.

For a teaser, here’s the band rehearsing “A Salty Salute” in Dayton earlier this month:

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.