I suppose the word of the day on Sunday for Devo’s performance at the Miller Lite Oasis would be “ironic.” Ironic that the band, whose central de-evolutionary message of human regression into the herd mentality has fueled their every conceptual expedition, was playing the Milwaukee Summerfest Miller Lite Oasis, which looped the same two or three beer commercials over and over and over on three separate screens before and after the show. Ironic that they were playing at a huge music festival like Summerfest, where massive amounts of people congregated and wandered in flocks like so many sheep. And ironic that a band that critiques the constructs of hierarchical government and the follow-the-leader tendencies of humankind as heavily as Devo does would willingly and joyously command a substantial throng of human beings themselves for over an hour.

“Who here believes in de-evolution?” posed bassist/keyboardist Gerald Casale to a roaring cheer of approval after a not-so-delicately-put treatise on “a man with a beard in a cave” (meaning Osama bin Laden) and the recent BP oil spill before launching into “Jocko Homo,” the track which gave the title to Devo’s first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! It was a theme that coursed through the entire concert lyrically, musically, and visually; to Devo’s credit they are nothing if not eminent performance artists, and they didn’t let that central idea, that men are rapidly becoming simian automatons, escape the show even for a second. Rarely did the band break android like character to speak frankly and honestly to the audience, and the massive video screen at the rear of the stage blinked through a collection of repeating phrases of imagery that the music video pioneers edited to match their arithmetical, angular brand of new wave.

But while Devo’s music and themes are winding, complex, and highly intellectual – and while their stage personas may reflect this (the band cycled through a greatest-hits collection of Devo costumes, and yes, the step-pyramid hats were represented) – Devo have always been nothing short of a great rock and roll band, and have demonstrated an uncanny ability to craft excellent pop songs as vessels for their message against mindless compliance.

Through the live setting of the Oasis – helped along by a state-of-the-art sound system – it was easy to hear the direct impact that squared-off, pounding, electronic songs like “Whip It” (a song, which Devo has often attempted to distance themselves from, that the band embraced entirely for the show, even using it as an opportunity to toss some of their famed pyramid hats into the audience) and “Gates of Steel” had on new wave and modern-day industrial and electronica. Even tracks from their new album Something For Everybody, like “What We Do” and the concert-opening “Don’t Shoot (I’m A Man),” seemed both fresh and familiar, as if 20 years off had no effect on the group’s ability to craft the excellent, wholly original brand of rock music that they were known for from the front end of the 1970s all the way to the tail end of the next decade.

The group also demonstrated the surrealistic, pranksterish sense of humor that dotted their many conceptual antics (like the famously weird video for “Whip It”) during their heyday. A video that played partway through the show (and provided the band a few minutes for a costume change) attempted to phrase in understandable terms, both humanity’s insignificance to the universe and Devo’s significance to humanity.

If this truly is Devo’s farewell tour – it’s unlikely in another 20 years the already-pudgy group will have the wherewithal for a trot around the world – then they’re truly going out on a high note, putting together a hilarious multimedia extravaganza that features the intellectual depth of high artists and the front-to-back energy of a rock band half their age. Their Summerfest-closing show stands as one of the highlights of the 2010 festival.