DEVO performing Freedom of Choice
November 7, 2009
The Grand At The Regency
Better than: It's a live Devo show. The fact that it still happens at all makes it better than most things.
The concept for this weekend's performances, like nearly everything Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale & Co comes up with, was brilliant: Perform two classic albums from the Devo catalog, one each in its entirety, on consecutive nights. In deciding upon their notable debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! along with Freedom Of Choice, Devo chose wisely. The former captured the band's punk-prophets-of-the-future vibe, while the latter housed some of their most sophisticated musicianship, notably "Girl U Want."
The execution, though, barely clocked in at sixty minutes per night. For fans who had waited over 30 years to see the band, was it enough? With both LPs' recorded material lasting only slightly longer than half an hour, the Spudboys stretched out their stage time by adding videos from their MTV heyday on the Freedom night and screening their classic The Truth About De-Evolution from their days as students at Kent State prior to performing Q: Are We Not Men?
As a band with its own philosophy - de-volution - and its own mythology - Booji Boy and General Boy - Devo predicted humanity's regression in a wired world even as the musicians themselves went about plugging into synthesizers and computerized effects. Freedom Of Choice's lyrical content about democracy, as cautionary as it was anthemic, has proven to be the ultimate Revenge Of The Nerds treatise and soundtrack. Performed on Saturday night, the album from 1980, and in particular the songs "Gates of Steel" and the title track, sounded triumphant.
Chali 2na, Gift of Gab, & Mr. Lif, hosted by Lyrics Born
November 7, 2009
The Independent
Better Than: This year's VH1 Hip-Hop Honors
Indie hip-hop icons still pack them in up in the Bay
Area. On Saturday night, the Independent was dominated by indie artists who
have spent more than 15 years building their audiences and fanbases, and thus
know how to give the people what they want. As a result, the sold out
capacity-crowd of 500, who showed up and early and cheered often, left happy.
People were feeling a little restless by the time Boston's
Mr. Lif took to the stage (the show started about 75 minutes late), but he quickly
satisfied with a pair of new, unreleased tracks. Lif brought the rawest
energy of the night. His set was enhanced by an interactive
video-display broadcasting images, controlled by on-stage
collaborating rapper/producer Willie Evans Jr. Towards the end of the set,
Evans' laptop experienced a few hiccups, causing the pair to improvise with an
impromptu freestyle session.
