Devo played MGM Music Hall – 5/9
New Wave legends Devo made an overdue trip to Boston this month as part of their “50 Years of De-Evolution…Continued!” tour.
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Glancing around at basically everything going down in American society right now, the fog of de-evolution regrettably seems to be settling upon us. That’s not a new feeling to have about American society, of course, but there’s no denying that a sense of regression and general backwardness feels a little more…pronounced at the moment. It’s a fitting time, then, for the satirical New Wave visionaries of Devo to bring their 50th anniversary tour – which kicked off on the west coast for their actual semicentennial in 2023 – back on the road.
Springing to life from the Kent State University campus and fallout from the killing of student protestors there in the early 1970s, Devo responded to a particularly dark American moment by exploring societal critique via zany art-punk before embracing an emergent synth-pop sound that catapulted them to unlikely heights of fame. It’s an oddball story for an oddball band, but one that’s cemented a legacy and a cult following for the group – still led today by the core ’70s trio of Gerard Casale and brothers Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh.
Last Friday’s Boston stop on the band’s 50th anniversary tour marked their first area appearance since way back in 2008, and they packed in a full house on Lansdowne Street for the anxiously-awaited return. Sans-opener, things kicked off just after 8 with the first of several tongue-in-cheek video interludes before the band launched into “Don’t Shoot (I’m A Man)” from their to-date most recent LP – 2010’s Something for Everybody. Ironically, it might’ve been that newest song of the night that felt the most dated, if only for how many political eons ago the 2007 “don’t tase me bro” incident it references now feels. From there, the set was an all-hits affair, highlighting the band’s early classics Are We Not Men? and Freedom of Choice with plenty of theatrical flair.
As you might expect from a band whose iconography proceeds them (how many others can you name with a signature piece of headgear identifiable by the general public?), the show’s multiple-act, evening-with format presented ample opportunities for costume changes, eye-catching instrument swaps and audiovisual panache, resulting in a consistently dazzling 90-minute revue. But even setting the stagecraft aside, the night stood to showcase just how many heaters are packed into the Devo catalog. “Whip It” and “Girl U Want” (sequenced back-to-back early on in the night, boldly) remained unstoppable earworms, while “Uncontrollable Urge” and “Jocko Homo” surged with nervy momentum when the synths were swapped for six-strings. Meanwhile “Gut Feeling” (my first taste of the band back in the ’00s, courtesy of Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic soundtrack) grew from cinematic surf-rock sprawl to frenzied peak during the show’s final stretch, before closer “Beautiful World” (sung by Mark in character as the not-uncreepy Booji Boy) used an alternately irreverent and unsettling video montage to underscore its closing refrain (“It’s a beautiful world / For you / Not me”) and run things all the way back to the band’s art-school provocateur roots. For what very possibly could be their final time performing in New England (the tour has, at least at times, been promoted as their farewell), the evening was about as complete and satisfying a summation of the Devo arc as you could ask.
Scroll below for a gallery from the show (featuring little of the aforementioned costume changes and the like, unfortunately, owing to venue policy).
