DEVOTIONAL. I called it “a bunch of nerds in a room” last year, and I stand by my previous classification of this excruciatingly nerdy event. Keep it wack, Cleveland.

But indulging in nerdy activities also allows one to see some impressive musical acts, engage in fascinating conversation, and see friends old and new that you’ve been waiting the whole year to get all in their faces calling them what they are: “NERRRRDS.” In short, it’s one of the most weekends of the year.

Fridays at DEVOtional are usually held in the tavern of the Beachland Ballroom, yet so many tickets sold this year that they had to move it to the main room. It was truly surreal. Yet it worked like a charm, and if anything, it just extends the excitement of Saturday, so if it’s what we gotta do to get all those nerds in that goddamn room, I’m good with it.

A good pal of mine, Malcolm Tent, truly opened this year’s installation with a set of “unwanted DEVO songs.” He’d been advertising it on Facebook for at least a week leading up to the event, and it definitely lived up to the hype. While I expected an acoustic set from the times he’s previously played DEVOtional, he instead unleashed a slew of mind-crushing electronic loops straight out of the rubber factory as he gestured the lyrics to “I Desire” like twisted spoken word. David Kendrick, who drummed for DEVO, frankly obliterated the skins for the last half of the set as Malcolm shredded his yowling electric guitar with a loose drumstick. It was beautiful, and dare I say it was the best set of the weekend. But we’ll get to Fight Milk in a bit.

Malcolm was also the one who recruited me to create the art for the back of an album exclusive to this DEVOtional, DEVOted. It’s an intentionally bootleggy compilation of live tracks from past years, and it’s pretty damn DEVO all around. I’m proud of how my back cover turned out, and I’m glad I was able to lend a hand.

The BIG news was this year’s most esteemed first-time attendee, Mark Mothersbaugh himself. I remember the state of disbelief I was in when I saw his name on the DEVOtional flyer when it was first made public. Just about everyone who has ever gone to a DEVOtional had been going back and forth about Mark’s not being there for years, and he finally decided to give it a shot. There he was on Friday night, taking videos of bands on his phone and excitedly talking with his loyal followers. When I reminded him that I fake-punched him in New York last May by waving my fist at him, he took my wrist and yanked it at his chin and made me actually sock him. I could actually feel it in my fingers for a few minutes afterwards. During one of the bands I looked across the room and saw him take a giant bite out of the sleeve someone’s copy of oh, no! it’s DEVO. After the weekend was over I got to see photos on Facebook of him with other people’s phones in his mouth. He. Got. CRUUUUUNK. And it was glorious.

Max got to nerd out to him about Mark’s brother Jim’s old school electronic drum kit from the seventies, and Mark filmed him doing it, so that footage exists on Mark’s phone. Ah, technology.

The Akronauts, who mixed energetic DEVO covers with originals, followed Malcolm. They brought the fun and the funky basslines. Poopy Necroponde, who turned my brain inside out last year, followed, though this year they probably got closer to blowing my ears out! I’m glad my ears got the break they deserved after this weekend, especially from Morgan PC’s hardcore de-vo squelches and voiceboxes! Both bands really bought the fashion, with white jumpsuits and neon blue berets respectively. The latter’s bass player remains one of the coolest women in existence with her stage presence alone.

I completely missed Weird Paul Petroskey’s closing set, which I’d been highly anticipating, because I was too busy having a conversation with an old school University of Akron alum outside, so I bought some of Paul’s CDs to make up for it. That was a reoccurring theme of the weekend: missing things because I was too busy being engaged in gripping talk with cool elders.

For such a shakeup, it ran smoothly as ever. Every act was energized to the max, and there was really was plenty of great conversation to have, whether it was with old friends, new friends, or Mark Mothersbaugh hopped up on Bloody Marys. It was a pretty damn great prelude to the jam packed Saturday that followed.

Also, look at how cute we are!