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The Japanese, it must be said, are some of the most rabid music fans in the world, putting even Stateside metalheads and British techno boffins to shame. Not only are they the most respectful crowds most bands will ever play before, but they are loyal to the death, even gifting their heroes with expensive trinkets and homemade artifacts. It's not surprising, then, that the crowd assembled before Devo for Live in the Land of the Rising Sun is as die-hard as they come -- which, if you know anything about Devo, is really saying something.
As the boys from Akron trudge ahead in their third decade of existence, they're finding a whole new generation drawn to their music. Perhaps it's through Mark Mothersbaugh's close-knit ties with filmmaker Wes Anderson (he's scored all of his films to date, including the brilliant Royal Tenenbaums), or youngsters plundering their hip parents' record collections, but regardless of how they've come across Devo, they're connecting with them in a very real way. Based on the faces in the crowd during Live..., it's the younger faction of the Japanese Devo army that has come out in droves, braving brutal heat and ultra-packed conditions to see their heroes, many for the first time.
Opening with the now famous video montage starring the Mothersbaugh's father, the show slams into life with an amped-up run through longtime set opener "That's Good", with the boys resplendent in yellow paper maché suits and glowing red energy domes, jumping around like E'd up gibbons. It has to be said, however, that for men in their mid fifties, they look rather spry -- though nothing can quite hold a candle to the utter destruction they used to inflict (on both body and equipment) during their heyday; few bands in the history of rock smashed as many Moogs, blew apart as many sequences, fell over as many amps or snapped the necks off as many guitars as Devo. Sadly, there's little in the way of destruction here, but it's still great to see a band going for the throat at this stage of the game.
The set list, it has to be said, is a bit antiseptic, heavy on the hits and with few real surprises, particularly if you've seen one of the live shows in the past five years. They pull out the big guns early -- "Girl U Want", "Satisfaction" and "Whip It" are dispatched almost immediately -- saving some of the album cuts and super-fan favorites for later. The inclusion of "Come on Jonee" and "Gut Feeling/Slap Yer Mammy" are unexpected surprises, though a steamrolling version of "Jerkin Back and Forth" or "Theme from Dr. Detroit" would have undoubtedly brought the crowd to its knees. As they paint the sky red with heavily mechanical renditions of "Uncontrollable Urge" and "Jocko Homo", the crowd is enraptured, shouting every word like it was '81 and skinny ties were still the new bell-bottoms.
From a visual perspective, the set is pretty standard, with an array of cameras catching various perspectives. It's not cut quite MTV-style, but there are plenty of pans and jump cuts to keep the viewers on their toes. The focus is clearly Mothersbaugh, but throughout the set the cameras do a good job of catching the Casales in action, and zooming in on the crowd's reaction, which is almost always fawning jubilation. The sound has tendency to fritz out every so often, which makes the disc feel more like an excellent bootleg than a commercial product -- but Devo are at their core a punk band, and what's more punk rock than a bootleg?
The DVD extras are a bit bare-bones, but intriguing nonetheless. The interviews with the Japanese press are amazing, full of insane questions and even crazier responses from the boys themselves. The band's shopping excursion in Shibuya is also a trip, filled with madcap boutiques, random sightings and no shortage of language barriers. At any rate, the real draw here is the performance, so if the extras feel a bit tacked-on, then so be it -- they're not selling points in and of themselves.
Rabid Devo-philes will want to snag Live in the Land of the Rising Sun right quick, but those with short attention spans or looking to delve for the first time into the dark waters of Devo would probably be better served by either of Rhino's retrospective discs. This may not be the greatest Devo document in the world, but it's a good warts-and-all look at their state of the union some twenty-five years down the road. It isn't always pretty, but they can still excite and titillate.
-- Jason Jackowiak
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