Are we not men?

We are Devo!

By: Aaron Sakulich

Posted: 8/6/04

My mastery of the English language completely fails me when I try to describe the trip I took to New York City on July 23rd to see 80s synth-pop band Devo live in Central Park. Much like Dante's trip through realms beyond, I witnessed immense suffering and horrors beyond imagining, but at the end, I saw something indescribable, something so majestic and awe-inspiring that to attempt to describe it is to dirty the very event: Devo in concert.

Devo had one or two songs that made it big for a little while in the 80s, and have recently been bastardized into Swiffer commercials, but they were ahead of their times. They were so good that they were too good. Regardless, Devo has a huge cult following that some of my associates are a part of, so despite the fact that I didn't know the lyrics to a single Devo song, in fact could only name two offhand, I went. It was the best choice I've ever made. I would compare traveling to New York City with Dante's odyssey through Hell, except that my trip took longer and was less pleasant. The 'Summer Stage' in Central Park was actually a fairly pleasant venue, a large stage facing an open-air clearing amongst huge, green trees. That is, it would have been pleasant if not for the rain, which dribbled constantly through the first opening act, of which I remember nothing. They must have been either the most unremarkable band of all time or wearing some sort of psychic camouflage, because I left convinced that they had never existed.

The rain let up just in time for New York natives The YaYaYas to come on stage. To understand how obnoxious their lead singer was, you have to know something about rain in New York City: it isn't made of water. My friends and I got soaked, and all the white clothes we were wearing turned grayish-brown. I had a small cut from a bug bite on my arm, and when New York rain touched it, the wound fizzled and turned black. It has a disgusting, syrup texture that makes clothing adhere to skin and gives one the feeling of having been recently submerged in shit-flavored cooking oil. New York rain is the single most disgusting, toxic substance on the face of the earth.

So imagine that you've been standing in this putrid, filthy rain of death for about an hour. Soaked to the bone with this veritable sewage, the lead singer of the YaYaYas comes on stage. In a voice reminiscent of the Vodyanoi, terrible water spirits from Russian folklore that are animated by the souls of the damned, she shouts out "hey, where'd the rain go? Come back, rain! We want rain!"

With this, every single person in the crowd felt about her the way Vietnam veterans feel about Jane Fonda. Had we been able to drag her from the stage, we would have done things to her so terrible that I shudder at the mere recollection. I'm not one to judge a band solely on their lead singer, so for good measure let me mention that I cannot begin to describe the execrable wailings that they tried to pass off as music. It sounded as if someone had filled an automatic dryer with cats, snakes, pots, and pans. Screeching, clanking, hissing, screaming garbage that surely provides the soundtrack to the most painful tortures of hell. Nay: surely it IS the most painful torture of hell. If I had to choose between sitting through a YaYaYas concert or reporting to Marine Corps Boot Camp and telling the Drill Instructor that my name is 'Mr. I Love-hot-sex-with-men,' I'd take the 13 weeks of blanket parties over the concert without a shade of regret.

After a short delay during which the roadies must have sanitized the stage after such crap had been on it for nearly an hour, the true concert was set to begin. The lights dimmed and a screen was lowered from the ceiling. On that screen was played a short movie about Devo which served as the starting pistol for the best concert that I have ever seen in my entire life. Devo's most popular song, Whip It, was the third in their set. I was actually relieved: the first two songs had been much better than Whip It, and I was afraid that they would save the most popular song for last the way most bands do, thus ending what was promising to be a great concert with a mediocre tune. The thing that I hadn't previously realized about Devo's music is how much fun it is. That 80s synth-pop sound that they pioneered is like some sort of musical morphine: hearing it makes the listener, no matter how unfamiliar they are with Devo, relax, sing along, and forget all their troubles.

Halfway through the first song, I was singing along to lyrics I'd never heard before. Devo's music is one of the things that made this concert great: as soon as it gets into your blood, it's almost impossible not to get into it. Another thing was the vibe coming from the crowd. I don't think there was a single person in the crowd having a bad time. There were no lasers, no fireworks, few special effects, and yet everyone was, for lack of a better phrase, grooving along.

Devo has, since their heyday in the 80s, gained a little weight, and some of them have gotten a little gray, but they did a fantastic job of playing to the crowd. The best example of this was when guitar player Jerry Casale sang "It's getting hot in here/ I'll take off all my clothes," which was the signal to strip out of their yellow power-plant employee overalls, revealing outfits that, for a moment when Casale jumped into the air, were a bit too revealing.

By abusing such a popular song lyric, Devo acknowledged their deviation from the mainstream, and it was enthusiastically applauded.

Speaking of the crowd, let me mention that it was a veritable encyclopedia of cult knowledge. While passing through, I heard someone yelling "It's a cookbook! It's a cookbook!" to which I replied with the time-honored cult classic password of "To Serve Man is a cookbook!" (a reference to a Twilight Zone episode.)

Upon hearing my reply, I was seized by the crowd, introductions were made, and I was officially one of them. It was as though I had found my true family, a family steeped in a folklore as strange as it was obscure. Other high points of the night include the songs "Jocko Homo" and "Satisfaction," both of which had every single person in the venue, if not the city, singing along. The only political statement of the night was the song "Freedom of Choice," which was great because it demanded action, but left the specific choice to be made up to the listener. It was a brief, subtle, reminder of our duty for the future, not harsh enough to sound preachy. Linda Rondstat could learn a lot from Devo. As an encore, Booji Boy came out and sang "A Beautiful World." It was like the icing on a cake made of pure awesomeness.

As soon as the last note sounded, however, more pestilent New York rain poured from the heavens.

We were soaked instantly, and those that didn't die from the disgusting, toxic rain either contracted pneumonia riding home in soaked, greasy clothes, or were mown down by automobiles speeding along with 5-foot visibility. Ah, New York.

You may think I just have a cultish personality, but I offer you this challenge: download the song "Mongoloid" and listen to it twice.

If you don't catch yourself humming it or trying to belt out the lyrics later in the day, you have, much like the deadly basement-filling gas radon, no taste at all.

The only thing I can compare seeing Devo in concert to would be gazing upon the face of your god, and hearing him declare you his finest creation.

My sole regret in life is that the triangle rating scale doesn't go up to one hundred million billion triangles, because that's what this concert deserves.

Rating: One hundred million billion triangles