Post #461620 by Mongoloid on Sun, Jun 14, 2009 10:59 AM

On 2009-06-12 14:23, TikiG wrote:
I saw DEVO perform around 1980 at the Raincross Square in Riverside, CA. DEVO was scheduled to play two shows in one night. I bought two tickets for the late show. My girlfriend at the moment and myself arrived early and proceeded to stand in line.

The evening wore on. My line grew larger as more people arrived anticipating a great late show.

The first show let out. The audience cleared the auditorium. We noticed they didn't open the auditorium doors for us. The people we shared the line with began to worry that something was wrong. About this time we noticed a gentleman standing on the roof of the auditorium with a bullhorn...

"The late performance of DEVO is cancelled!Save your tickets as they are your receipt to return for a future performance to be determined.."

It seems some idiot got up onto the mixing console during the first performance and DANCED ON IT. Completely ruined the soundboard. DEVO's roadies couldn't get the equipment squared away in time for a second performance that evening, so management decided to cancel the show.

BAD idea!

Raincross Square, at that time, was fairly new. All glass and chrome. In fact the whole front of the building was glass. Big glass plate windows. You can guess what happens next.

The first beer bottle to hit one of the huge glass panels shattered. The second, third and fourth beer bottles smashed in the glass windows.
Before too long, bottles, bricks, wood - anything that could be thrown at the building was being thrown...at the building...at the auditorium staff...at the...here they come...the police! Glass everywhere. Screaming teenage masses. Fire. Smoke. Sirens.

Before we could say "RUN!" I noticed tear gas canisters exploding all around us. We were now smack in middle of a full scale riot. Women were dropping like flies onto the pavement overcome with tear gas fumes. Runny eyes and snotty noses everywhere. Cops in riot gear. All within the space of twenty minutes. Everyone got to thier cars but couldn't really leave. What a mess, but what a story to tell back at school the following Monday morning.

The cancelled show was made-up for us later during thier tour. When they came back to Riverside later that summer to fulfill this one-off cancelled show, DEVO played thier hearts out, man! Full throttle, loud and playing with a vengence. I seem to remember they played for like three hours, basically all thier LPs up to that point. I believe this particular show was recorded as I remember Rodney Bingenheimer played the recording on one of his KROQ new-wave broadcasts. I wish I had a copy of that night's show today.

Looking back on this whole DEVO riot night now brings back fond memories. My one and only DEVO concert is probably thier one and only huge-scale riot adventure they experienced during the height of thier fame and touring. At least I like to think so.

Thanks for that story sounds more like something that would happen at a Slayer concert but it all comes down to D-EVOlution. I saw them about 3 years ago at the L.A. colliesium my wife was running in Nikes run hit wonder where she ran this course and along the way there were bands playing there one hit wonders, like Flock of Seagulls and Tone Loc and a few others. Well Devo was the headliner and the race ended in the collisium and Devo performed. As they were performing one of the lights up high on the stage beam caught fire. They looked up at it and just kept playing, totally punk rock!