Fri 9/16 @ 6PM
Sat 9/17 @ 2PM
The DEVOtional, the annual weekend for fans of Akron’s DEVO, started back in 2020 and has usually taken place primarily at Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom. It attracts passionate DEVO fans aka “Spuds” from all around the country. But this year’s DEVOtional 2022, they promise, “will be our biggest & best yet.”
It’s not the usual bunch of DEVO-inspired and DEVO tribute bands — they’ve had entertaining ones every year. It’s the special guests. For the first time, the band’s most prominent member, singer/visual artist Mark Mothersbaugh, will be one of them. “We’ve been trying to get Mark to join us for over 20 years. THIS IS THE YEAR!” they say.
And he’s not the only one! He’ll be joined by his bandmates Gerald Casale and David Kendrick, Oingo Boingo’s Steve Bartek who performed on Casale’s latest single, and Michael Schwartz who played Rod Rooter in DEVO’s early videos. It’s definitely the most powerhouse lineup of guests they’ve had.
And yes, there’ll be the usual melange bands playing DEVO-inspired music, including New Devolution all the way from Santiago, Chile demonstrating how far DEVO’s influence has spread from their early days as a performance-art ensemble in Kent and Akron in the early ’70s.
Friday evening at the Beachland Tavern, Connecticut’s Malcolm Tent, Akron’s Akronauts, Cleveland’s Morgan PC with Poopy Necropone and Pittsburgh’s Weird Paul perform for the warm-up evening.
The doors open for the main event at the Beachland Ballroom on Saturday at 2pm with L.A.’s Jimmy Psycho Experiment kicking thins off at 3pm. The interviews and Q&As with the special guests go on from 4-6pm. Starting at 6 there’s more music, starting with Kent’s Massive Hotdog Recall featuring Al Mothersbaugh, followed by New Devolution, Richmond, Washington’s Fight Milk and Akron’s Detention.
Get your tickets here.