I saw Devo in Pittsburgh, live at the Stanley Theater. They were terrific, a highly underrated band, that had a great sense of the times, and under their surface goofiness was a biting sense of irony and wit. They were much better live than on film or vinyl.

Their show opened in a set modeled on a Grecian temple, with three treadmills leading out of the stage into the audience. They would let the treadmills carry them forward, then would back-pedal in unison or in alternating combinations to keep from rolling off the ends, all the while playing and singing furiously. They were dressed in black paramilitary uniforms, with hair cropped short, clean-shaven, there was a definite and undeniably fascist iconography about it, which when coupled with their stylized and angular movements, I found slightly disturbing. It was their "New Traditionalist" tour (not oxymoronic at all, it was the early 80s and the country was entering one of its periodic heritage frenzies); and like everything about them, even the album name was whimsical, ironic, and hinted of darker things beyond.

But after a particularly show-stopping number ("Mongoloid") that ended the first set, the entire audience spontaneously arose, their right arms extended in the air at precisely the same angle, in a closed-first version of the Nazi salute. Sure, it's a common enough rock concert convention, but the simultaneity and precision of it sent chills down my spine. This audience had obviously experienced this before, and frequently. I remember thinking to myself "This must have been what it was like...". I wondered if the boys on stage had any idea what they were tapping into.

It was a great show, but I remember my wife and I driving home strangely silent that night, pondering what we had just witnessed.