Live 1980 DVD review

[Boom]

This is the best DVD ever made. True, the camera work is not of the
highest quality for its day, but the sound is really good and they are
playing their asses off. I've seen a lot of Devo vids and heard quite
a few bootlegs, and this performance is probably the best performance
I've ever heard from them.

This is a complete show of the Freedom Of Choice tour, however, it's
not all-inclusive. First off, the FOC Theme fades up from a point
after it already started. As the theme plays, they run some Star
Wars-looking crawler across the screen explaining about the DVD and
they don't show Mark's entrance with the American flag. They also
don't show the Rod's Big Reamer video before Freedom of Choice.

But those are the only things missing. Otherwise it's all here...the
energy domes, the wacky choreography, the big light boxes, the ponchos
with the dancing letters, the painfully short gym shorts. And yes,
the long-missing second half of the Booji Boy's Funeral video is
included! The first half is where Booji Boy got his head smashed off
in an industrial press, and I won't spoil what happens in the second
half, but it truly has to be seen to be believed. It flickers a lot
and the color's off because the camera crew taped it off the screen at
the show, but who cares? It's the first time this footage has been
seen in 25 years, and unless you attended the show on the tour (which
I did), you've probably not seen it up until now.

Also included are two songs on video as performed by Dove The Band Of
Love. The rumor is that the next Devo DVD will have even more Dove
footage, and I can't wait. People can say what they want about Devo,
but those guys had iron balls to come out in those leisure suits and
visors and making speeches about "Thuh Looooorrrrrrr-da!"

Since they don't seem to be coming to Orlando, I will have to make do
with this consolation prize of a video. Can't complain in the least,
though. Great stuff! Buy it now!

[Reverend Beastly]

Here's my review, already posted to the Basement website and soon to be
sent out over the mailing list:

Here we have my review for the brand-spanking-new DEVO DVD, 'Live
1980.' I've gotta say, it's completely awesome in almost every
way. It's not without its drawbacks, but this is one you're
probably going to want to buy two copies of. The second one is in case
you wear out the first one.

In the interest of ending this review with praise, I'll start out
with the negatives. I would say that my main complaint doesn't have
so much to do with this release as it does with whoever shot this
twenty-five years ago. Apparently, these cameramen were not too
familiar with the focus dial on their cameras. As a result, we see
blurred shots more often than we might be used to seeing on other
concert DVDs. The editing is my other main gripe, though this is more
of a style preference. I prefer straight shots that last a little while
as opposed to lots of quick cuts. This disc has a fair amount of both,
I guess I would have just liked less quick cutting. There's also two
minor typos on the back of the packaging, but that's not really of
any concern.

Now, onto the praise, and there is a lot of it. First and foremost, the
band is at the top of their game. Everything is tight, calculated and
well executed. If any of you have seen DEVO live in recent years,
you'll know that they're still pretty tight, but seeing this will
remind you of how much tighter they would be if they were still a
full-time band. On the positive side of the camerawork, the vast
majority of the shots we get in this feature are really really
excellent. Lots of great close-ups and even a few close shots of Alan!
Seeing DEVO's synth bay from this era as close up as we get is
fascinating. It's mind-boggling that Mark and Bob2 knew how to
manipulate every one of those keyboards to do something a bit different
from all of the others. Not to be discounted is the fact that this is a
COMPLETE performance. (Note that while there is no video for the "FOC
Theme," we do hear it and are treated to an amusing Star Wars-esque
scroll that was likely written by Jerry.) Yes, this does mean that we
finally get to see the complete Booji Boy "Tunnel of Life" tour
film! That segment of the show is beautiful, sad and moving. It's
strange how much one's heart actually goes out to Booji Boy after we
see what happens to him and his performance.

Also important to notice is the fact that we have DOVE footage as bonus
video on this DVD. Shot at the M80 Festival on black and white video,
this is not the same film footage that Chuck Statler shot that you may
be familiar with from the "Complete Truth" DVD or at the recent
DEVOtional (where he showed "Worried Man" and "Praying Hands"
in their entirety, footage the band hadn't ever even seen). However,
the video we have here was shot with multiple cameras and is very
nicely edited, which is something I was pleasantly surprised by. These
snippets are on this DVD in promotion for Music Video Distributors'
upcoming M80 Festival DVD release. Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of
DOVE there.

Another very pleasantly surprising aspect of the DVD is the four
different audio tracks for the show. Two are Bob Casale's mix of the
show, in both Dolby 2.0 and Dolby Surround 5.1. The other two are Chris
Seyler/Big Round Sound's mix of the show, also in both Dolby 2.0 and
Dolby Surround 5.1. The latter mix is most likely the original audio
mix that was carried with the original video tapes. As you may assume,
Bob2's mix is far superior (and is the default sound mix), but it's
very nice that MVD gave us the option of what we would like to hear.

Last, but not least, this isn't just a DVD, it's also a CD of the
show. Just flip the disc over and pop it in your CD player. It sounds
to me like the CD is also the Bob2 mix of the show. However, many
aspects of this disc strike me as strange. On the DVD, some of the
longer pauses in between songs have been edited to speed up the pace of
your TV viewing, which is understandable. Based on this, I would have
expected for the complete show, with long pauses and all, to be
featured on the CD. This is not the case. The CD, in fact, is more
heavily edited than the DVD. The "FOC Theme" is completely missing,
and the CD kicks off with "Whip It." Also missing from the CD are
"Jocko Homo" and "Tunnel of Life." Now, I can kind of
understand leaving off "Tunnel" because Booji Boy songs don't
have a long history of actually making it to albums, but the omission
of "Jocko" is just strange. Also, the ending drums of "Freedom of
Choice" and everything preceding the first vocals in "Smart
Patrol" are cut. This makes for a VERY abrupt transition between the
tracks. I'm not too concerned with this because, really, I didn't
want this disc for the CD portion (as you probably know, I have more
than enough DEVO live CDs to keep me happy for several lifetimes), but
it's still something that sticks out.

All in all, though, this is an extremely excellent DVD, and definitely
the best live DEVO DVD to date. List price for this baby is a mere $15
and you can get it for about $10 with free shipping if you look around.
If you're a DEVO fan, you need this DVD. If you're a DEVO fan and
don't have $10, beg friends, parents and business associates until
you have $10. Then buy this DVD. You will not regret it.

-Alex
http://www.boojiboysbasement.com