Devo: Boston Booji
The Ohio spuds celebrate 50+ years in MGM Hall at Fenway
Never forget that Devo has always been a boatload of fun.
I mean, if there’s anybody that can resist the unbridled ecstasy of the frenetic acceleration of “Uncontrollable Urge,” I’ve yet to meet them. But also: In the late-’70s and MTV-era ‘80s — when various parts of the rock world first took notice of Akron’s finest — Devo’s music existed a foreboding, ironic context, some of it (but not all of it) laying out the sorry state of a deteriorating (or as they would have it de-evolving) world. Cynical or just spot-on? Was the glass half-empty or half-full? It sure was dirty.
In 2025, the state of the world is much sorrier and a reconfigured Devo — still led by cofounders singer-keyboardist Mark Mothersbaugh, his brother, guitarist Bob, and guitarist/keyboardist Gerald Casale — is upon us again, making even more sense. Or as the bumper sticker reads: “Devo was right about everything.” And they’re having the same kind of grit-your-teeth, pre-apocalyptic fun, more than ever as the follies and horrors of Trumpworld keep unfolding. Their current tour, after all, is called “50 Years of De-Evolution … Continued!” Where exactly would de-evolution logically end?
So, despite an overarching theme of things falling apart, Devo remains hugely entertaining, their dark comedy telling bitter truths, their radically structured, jerky/quirky music laden with hooks. If the sound is less radical than it seemed in 1978, well, we’ve had a half-a-century to get accustomed and groove to it.
Devo was in concert at Boston’s MGM Fenway Music Hall May 9, playing for about 90 minutes, the live music often set to impeccably synced, dazzling large-screen video accompaniment. The video intro came by way of fictional sleazoid record company exec Rod Rooter (played by Michael W. Schwarz, back then and now) who called Devo “my biggest regret,” them failing to capitalize on the market as they should have done. There is some added irony here because Devo has actually capitalized on the market with their merch. Even if what they sported on stage was designed to spoof rock merchandising, it also served, and still serves, as real merch.
To wit, Devo took the stage in black unis, donned their red flower pot (or “energy dome”) hats, left the stage to an intentionally glitchy, digitally manipulated tape of the late prominent atheist and scientist Carl Sagan speaking about the vastness of space video. The Devo squad came back in the classic yellow faux hazmat jump suits, which, in due time, Mark Mothersbaugh ripped off band members (and himself) in pieces.
Who is Devo right now? Aside from the aforementioned co-founding spuds, Devo is comprised this way: They have a two-drummer rotation with Jeff Freidl and the ever-busy Josh Freese swapping seats and sticks. (Freidl had this gig; Freese is playing with A Perfect Circle right now.) Sometime Bostonian Josh Hager, who doubles on guitar and keys, joined in 2014 but this was his first local gig with the band. He fit in like a glove. The loud, but crystal-clear, front-of-the-house sound was handled by Hager’s older brother, Paul David Hager. Original drummer Alan Myers died in 2013 (stomach cancer) and guitarist Bob Casale died in 2014 (brain cancer).
OK, who else is Devo?
We are all Devo! As the line from “Jocko Homo,” played near the set’s end spelled out (literally) in pulverizing repetitive call-and-response form. It’s probably been done every time Devo has set foot on stage. Setlist.fm has it as 431 times since it was first performed in 1975. Plus, one more in Boston making 432 and one more in Cleveland, Ohio by the time you read this. Sounds right.
The 20-song set started with some of the non-hits — not to say they’re not good songs mind you — like “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man)” and “That’s Good.” The first big audience scream came as Devo launched into the familiar chords of “Girl U Want,” followed by “Whip It” (a damn fun song even if it was the only song incurious rock fans ever knew and pegged Devo as a “novelty” band) and “Planet Earth,” where Casale’s voice took on a harsher edge while aptly summing up life’s existence on our planet: “It’s a place to live your life/Where pleasure follows pain/People go insane/Fly around in planes/Pray that it won’t rain/Drive around in cars/Get drunk in local bars/Dream of being stars.”
Then, as Devo exited the stage, we got a The band returned sporting their iconic yellow suits, and launched into “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” their robotic but far from insincere take on the Stones classic.
An electric three-pack was “Uncontrollable Urge” with its thousand “Yeah-yeah-yeahs” call and responses, the clanky “Mongoloid” (“his friends were unaware”) and the quasi-anthemic “Jocko Homo.” There weren’t a lot of devo-ations (sorry) from the recorded versions we know — Devo is not a jam band – though Mothersbaugh put the “O-hi-o” chant back in “Jocko Homo.”
The four-chord rocker “Gates of Steel” brought us down the home stretch — “A man is real! /Not made of steel!” — and then came the mock-somber “Devo Corporate Anthem” tape. The band used the big video screen to help spell out the message sung in the “Freedom of Choice” chorus in case you somehow missed it: “FREEDOM OF CHOICE IS WHAT YOU GOT/FREEDOM FROM CHOICE/IS WHAT YOU WANT.” As a post-script, Casale added, “Use it or lose it — maybe it’s already gone. What do you think?”
I am thinking if Trump gets around to deporting natural-born U.S. citizens for holding views contrary to Dear Leader, Casale and company will probably make the list.
Mark Mothersbaugh left the stage after the surging “Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy” — the latter half as close to hardcore punk as Devo gets — only to come back as, you guessed it, the masked-up, toddler-faced Booji Boy to sing “Beautiful World” in this high-pitched child-like voice. He also told an extemporaneous tale about, well, something. I caught part of it — I know there was a bit about “looking up to thieves” — but figured I’d later ask Hager, who I’ve known for years, going back to when was a member of the caustic mid-‘90s Boston band The Elevator Drops.
“I couldn’t make out much of what Booji was saying,” Hager related the next day. “But earlier Mark and I walked around the neighborhood and I showed him my first apartment above Boston Beer Works and told him the crazy story of how the Elevator Drops got started with the money my neighbor stole from the Starlight Casino and [then] went on the run. Then, we went to where [the] New Alliance [studio] was and I told him about how I used to live in the tape storage closet on a shelf after quitting my high-paying marketing executive job. So, I think in there he was referring to this being my neighborhood.”
Hager, of course, was decades away from being in Devo then, but isn’t that a perfect story for Devo-ville?
We were a happy bunch of spuds heading out into the pounding Boston rain.
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