Live 1980 - Devo DVD/CD Review

DVD/CD Review

Lacklustre DVD of a quirky looking band with even quirkier music: it now looks and sounds very dated. Eccentric American quintet and new wave synth-rockers Devo made a huge visual and musical impact in the late 70s and early 80's. Early purveyors of synthesiser music, which later influenced the likes of Britain's Gary Numan, Human League, and Soft Cell who took the style to classier levels. Devo had an agenda they wanted to spread around the globe. Self proclaimed 'art monsters' and 'Spudboys', the quintet brought strange sounds and strange words to an unsuspecting young audience. Their message was anti-evolution, thus the name Devo(lution) came into being.

This shambolically amateurish record caught the band that briefly skirted with pop fame in the UK in late 70s and 1980, with only two songs worth mentioning - Whip It!, and Come Back Jonee, neither of which made the top 20 in the UK. Highly acclaimed debut album Q: Are We Not Men? A: No We Are Devo peaked at 12, with their three subsequent offering barely making the top 50.

The DVD, full of fuzzy long-shots and glaring lights, followed by almost directionless mixing and wandering camera work only add to the poor package. Musically, they were far inferior to their strongly held beliefs that devolution was the only way forward for mankind, based on Oscar Kiss Maerth's crackpot anthropology The Beginning Was The End. Got it? Mmh.

Hardly a visual feast by today's standards, or even back then as it happens, they romp through 20 songs at breakneck speed with few highlights from their one dimensional and contrived repertoire. True to form and ethos, they're wearing silly outfits and even sillier flower-pot hats.

It doesn't take long before the 'I'm bored with this...' creeps in.

Die hard fans may drool over this encounter with the past, which is where most of this 'muzak' well and truly belongs. Looking back, they resemble more of a novelty act rather than serious music troubadours.

Elly Roberts