Five guys meet in Vancouver in the late 1970s. They form a band and win a record deal by writing songs awash with instantly loveable powerpop. Tragically, due to their distance from the centre of the music universe, fate transpires to deny them the success their songs deserve. Thirty years later the band, now well into their 50s, reform and win over crowds with those same great tunes. The band is Pointed Sticks, and watching them spread smiles across Vancouver's Vogue Theatre last night felt like being inside a feel-good Disney movie.
As adorable as this scenario was, there was still something slightly uncomfortable about watching the men of the Pointed Sticks' vintage strut their stuff on a stage of the Vogue's magnitude. Elder statesmen like Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen can carry it off because they are rock stars. Pointed Sticks are not rock stars. You can tell.
Headliners Devo couldn't be labelled rock stars either. They were always too bizarre to have anything resembling the kind of instant broad charisma that separates arena-fillers from mere musicians. And yet, these Midwestern weirdoes, mistaken by many as a novelty act, have become one of New Wave's most robust survivors. It turns out that when a band sets its stall on being cool and sexy, it can only go so long before it becomes a parody of itself. When a band's aesthetic is genuinely weird, they can continue that strangeness indefinitely.
Last night's Devo performance was more than an exercise in surrealism. It was a classic rock and roll show, albeit one where the accepted standards of what a band is supposed to do – "Are y'all having a good time?" – were thrown out of the window in favour of face masks, multiple costume changes and the finest sexagenarian choreography found in North American today.
The music has stood the test of time. Songs like ‘Girl U Want' and ‘Whip It', would be labelled punk-funk had they emerged in the last decade. Their inspired cover of The Rolling Stones' ‘Satisfaction' remains the gold standard of deconstructing a classic to create something truly original. ‘Uncontrollable Urge' was pedal-to-the-floor punk rock, a point emphasised when bespectacled front man Mark Mothersbaugh started ripping his clothes off during the song: an action not nearly as sexy as it sounds. The rest of the band tore off their coveralls as the show climaxed with a pumping ‘Jocko Homo', Mothersbaugh thrusting his mic into the crowd for the call and response, "Are we not men? / We are Devo!"
There was a point to all this apparent oddness. The whole concept of the band and its ‘de-evolution' is that humanity has started to regress back from where it came from.
"How many people here think devolution is real?" smiled bass player Gerald Casale. "You don't have to look far for the evidence."
His nod to the border was the most obvious social comment of the night. Devo's surreal critique of American society is more cultural than political, more challenging than educational; a point confirmed during the encore's final song, ‘Beautiful World', as Mothersbaugh appeared in a mask as the innocent but ultra-creepy Booji Boy. He worked his way through an incomprehensible monologue about Michael Jackson, threw a hundred rubber balls into the crowd, and sang the refrain, "It's a beautiful world," as footage of BP's oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico played behind him. Plenty to think about, even if making sense of it all seemed futile.
That's the difference between rock starts and artists. Salvador Dali didn't stop the weirdness once he'd qualified for a seniors' discount. Neither have Devo. And they're still really great to dance to.
