House of Blues, Anaheim~DEVO

[€uroMeinke]

It's the morning after and my ears are still filled with cicadas - Last night was a blast if a bit bizzar.

I think I last saw DEVO in 1981, and both crowd and band we're much younger. In an odd way, this seemed to work for the band. Granted when they emerged wearing their industrail yellow suits, they no longer appeared as angst-riden teens - rather they looked like theiur dads - in their work clothes, ready to go down to the recombinant DNA plant. They still had their sense of perfromance and style. They kept their stilted choreography which at one timed mocked the boy bands of the past, but now as old men, some with belly's - the image was elevated to a new sort of absurd.

Some images and memories of the show:

• Bob I doing what I can best call - anti-air-guitar, that is he was holding and posing with a real guitar, but not playing - or even pretending to play
• Bob I manically playing the bass, breaking all the string one by one and falling into the crowd
• A tribute to Disneyland, after shedding the yellow suits and flower pot hats, they donned giant foam Mickey Ears, and perfromed some of that stilted choreography - god I wish I had snuck in a camera for a picture of that
• Opening with a montage of the original DEVO films - these guys were always multi-media artisits and it's nice to see they've retained that element for the show
• The audience in mass pogoing to Uncontrollable Urge - I swear I haven't seen this since 1980
• Tour Shorts - with DEVO LIVE 2005 - written across the ass, now that's DEVO.
• Mark Mothersbaugh, pulling an endless supply of swag from his shorts, including towels, shorts, and about 100 dayglow superballs.

Yeah it was fun.

And it keeping with our recent concert going experience, we again ran into someone we didn't expect to see there. This time it was someone I knew from work and her husband - who's paths we must have crossed back in the late 70's early 80's as we relived past concert experiences over a post concert cocktail at Tortila Joe's.

Next up, Gang of Four, the Knitters, and possibly the New York Dolls...