Devo & the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs in Central Park

[DudeAsInCool]

CENTRAL PARK SUMMERSTAGE REVIEW | DEVO

Snappy and Smoldering in Jumpsuits and Upturned Flowerpots

By JON PARELES

Published: July 26, 2004

The band members wore uniforms and did some synchronized moves. Their songs had snappy little hooks and robotic drumbeats. They even started their set with an introductory video. But Devo was hardly a boy band when it played on Friday night at Central Park SummerStage, in its first public New York concert since the 1980's. Just in time for the current new-wave revival, Devo, which got started in Ohio in 1972 and released its first album in 1978, returned to prove that its songs still have some bite....Friday's concert was partly a vigorous nostalgia trip, with a set of the band's most familiar songs and Devo's members wearing their matching yellow jumpsuits and red "energy dome" hats, which look like inverted flowerpots.

Two New York bands that draw on new wave shared the bill: Stellastarr, which juggled the styles of the Cars, Talking Heads and the Cure, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, whose set squandered its momentum on stubbornly midtempo songs. But at least the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' singer, Karen O, had just the outfit for the occasion, an outdoor concert punctuated by rain. She arrived in a transparent poncho over a fluorescent-patterned one-piece bathing suit.

You can read the full review here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/26/arts/mus...PARE.html?8hpib