If the album is indeed a lost format, nobody seems to be telling concert acts.
With increasing regularity, veteran rock stars are inserting front-to-back performances of classic albums into their sets. In fact, º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøis getting a double-dose of this starting Monday night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre with the first appearance in 25 years of Devo.
The Hollywood-based spuds – by way of Akron, Ohio – will be resurrecting the herky-jerky rhythms and electronics of its memorable Brian Eno-produced 1978 debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo on Monday and following it up with 1980’s Freedom of Choice Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Steely Dan takes up residence at Massey Hall to recreate its seminal 1977 album Aja, followed by a run through of 1976’s The Royal Scam (other select dates of the New York duo’s 2009 Rent Tour features renditions of 1980’s Gaucho).
In explaining the current abundance of LP concert riches, Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh credits a project play-through program featured at the U.K.-based All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival called Don’t Look Back.
” and made us want to do it again,” recalls Mothersbaugh, 59, admitting he was skeptical. “We went over there thinking this seems kind of like a silly idea, because this isn’t how you arrange sets for a live show.”
What surprised Mothersbaugh, his brother Bob, Jerry and Bob Casale and drummer Josh Freese was how much they enjoyed it, leading the decision to alternate shows between the quintet’s two most popular albums, Are We Not Men? and Freedom of Choice, re-released on Warner Music two weeks ago with bonus tracks.
“I think it has a lot to do with fans. They know the music through the album, and to them, it makes sense – to play Side One and then Side Two.
“As an artist, you may have different attachments or reasons for your sequencing on a record, but as a fan, that’s how you’re exposed to the music, probably for the first time, usually.
“And I think it ends up holding a value that wasn’t necessarily anticipated back in the day, when many other things like the CD and the Internet weren’t anticipated, either.”
Mothersbaugh hints that performing whole albums may be a one-shot deal with Devo.
“We’re putting a new album out next year, so we’re going to give people one last chance to hear the way it either the way they remember it or the way it was originally intended to be listened to.
“This will give fans a chance to have a simulated turntable experience. You’ll have to turn us over after we get through Side One each night.”
For Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, the motive for him and partner Donald Fagen to rotate shows featuring the jazz-rock projects Aja, The Royal Scam and Gaucho was a little more calculated.
“It’s an idea that we had floated and fallen on for a few years on tour,” explained Becker down the line from New York. “In terms of going out this year with all the economic uncertainty in the market, people going to concerts can be sporadic in terms of paying good money. So it’s sort of an added-value thing.”
However, Becker, 59, says, the fact that the audience knows the order of the songs being played by the ace 14-piece band – which includes guitarist Jon Herington (Billy Joel); jazz trumpeter Michael Leonhart (James Brown) and trombone legend Jim Pugh (Woody Herman, B.B. King) – has worked to the performers’ advantage.
“It’s not only popular with the audiences, but I think the band has also benefited the relationship between band and audience in a sense of participation,” he explains.
“Playing the stuff that way, we’ve created a program dynamic and it’s helped rethink the way we play the tune. We’re playing things with a touch more restraint and spaciousness, and it’s more apparent.
“For one thing, the material on those albums is the best material for this touring configuration. This year we’ve reached a high point of performance and there’s a focused energy. This is the best possible instrumentation for this band.”
Devo’s Mothersbaugh agrees with Becker’s assessment of musical rediscovery. ”Freedom of Choice (had) commercial success and I had to hear some of the songs on the album more than I wanted to, so I never listened to it over the years.
“Going back and performing those songs, I started appreciating them more.”
For those who fear that by missing either night of the LP showcases, you might forfeit your chance to hear Devolved versions of ”” or ”,” or miss Aja‘s ”” or The Royal Scam‘s ”,” perish the thought. Mothersbaugh’s band features songs from other albums in their encore; Steely Dan offers even more variety.
“Less than half the concert is taken up with the album, there’s quite a bit of older material,” promises Steely Dan’s Becker. “We’re always noodling with the set list. It keeps it fresh and fun.”
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