|
Devo with The English Beat
Scene Pavillion
08-18-05
Okay, I’ve never cared for the English Beat, and the
remnants of said band that performed at Tower City this evening didn’t do
much to change my opinion. My wife, on the other hand, likes the band just
fine. Not in any major sort of way, but she likes the hits. And of course
The English Beat played their hits: “Tenderness”, “Mirror in the Bathroom”,
“Tears of a Clown”, and a song by sole original member Dave Wakeling’s other
well know band, General Public’s “Tenderness”. All very good reggae/ska
inflected eighties pop, if that’s your thing. Dave and his three bandmates
did a credible enough job of reproducing the Beat’s material live and were
well received.
But I came to see Devo, dammit. Although part of the
late seventies/early eighties punk and new wave scene, Devo’s sound is still
fresh. I’d say that’s due to the fact that no one else really sounds like
them, and the songs they wrote really stand the test of time. They may have
only had one big hit (“Whip It”, which the band got out of the way early on
in the set), but if you grew up watching the early days of MTV like I did,
you heard and saw a good portion of the tunes offered up.
Devo opened with “That’s Good” and kept on banging out
the classics one after the other including favorites like “Girl U Want”,
“Gates of Steel”, “Mongoloid”, “Uncontrollable Urge”, and of course “Jocko
Homo”. Simply put, these guys kicked ass. Now if only they’d do a new
album. (Bob Ignizio)
 |
