The Zeros, Uptown Theater, Kansas City -

KANSAS CITY – You could hear a man in a Devo costume yell these words at the band: “More eighties, less talking!” Two conflicting thoughts then crossed my mind.

The Zeros, Shawn Poores (drums), Brad Gaddy (bass), and Larry Groce (guitar), had been playing with a nonstop grinding enthusiasm since they hit the stage half an hour earlier. As is customary, they introduced themselves between songs and said praising words to the audience, but mostly they played on and kept up the pulsing rhythm of the eighties New Wave songs their audience clearly demanded by dancing with a raw ceaseless energy on the Scarfacesque dance floor directly in front of the stage.

TheDevo man’s demand was fair. “More eighties, less talking.” Don’t break the spell–let us keep this illusion forever!

Whenever you interact with art, you are obliged to lose your identity and surrender to the whims of the artists. There is no other way to grasp the artists’ intent, and in the case of the live performance especially, there is no other way to enjoy the artists’ craft.

You must not be you during that moment; you must simply be there: a participant in an active memory shared by others. And for all who went out to watch the Zeros perform at Kansas City’s Uptown Theater on the fourth of April, the moment and memory was of the eighties and nowhere else.

For this reason, the Uptown Theater was the perfect venue to watch Zeros’ perform. Indeed, as opposed to your standard bar, places where many people are bound to stumble in for reasons other than listening to an eighties cover band, every person at the Uptown Theater shared the main intent of watching the Zeros. Sure, the same antics and ulterior motives of the bar scene were at play here, but these were secondary to the confluence of eighties music and atmosphere, as opposed to the other way around.

This might seem like a petty distinction, but it is paramount. All illusions can be shattered. And the more temporal the illusion, the easier it is to break. So the impact of the individual jerk who’s trying to seem ironic can be monumental.

Happily, then, no one showed who might have disrupted the flow of the event, and one could feel a great sense of calm from this energetic crowd. People let themselves go, and no one felt any shame. The scene made one think of Comic-Con, as many people, such as the Devo man, were dressed in homage to famous acts and fashion trends of the eighties.

As anticipated, John Hughes’ movies were well-represented, and the presence of neon clothing and a great variety of leggings was ubiquitous. On a side note, most of the hair was not big or frilly, but to be fair, that sort of costuming takes a great deal of commitment, and its absence did nothing to disturb the memory.

Amusingly enough, the vast majority of people who dressed up for the show came from younger generations. Some who would have still been infants or small children during that zeitgeist, as well as a few born well after the eighties ended. One such little girl, likely born after 9/11, who was dressed as Michael Jackson at the height of his powers, single glove and all.

But I suppose those who were present during the eighties didn’t need any costumes to surrender to the memory of the eighties. All they needed was the music. And the Zeros were happy to give them this, along with the memories.

Article by: Justin Volker
Photos by: Alex Stocksdale