Lightning struck twice this past week in Los Angeles, when two of rock’s most boundary-shattering bands performed an entire classic album from their career on two consecutive nights. First up was DEVO, legendary for reshaping late-‘70s New Wave into their own twisted image, playing their groundbreaking 1978 debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! in its entirety this past Tues, November 3rd, at the Henry Fonda Theater; the next night, just a couple streets over, those shapeshifting iconoclast icons of alternative rock, the Pixies, showcased their career watermark album Doolittle at the Hollywood Palladium.

Both concerts shared some things in common: each was sold out, and while there were a number of smooth, middle-aged pates at each (both onstage and off), there were also a number of young’uns that proved the timelessly hip nature of both bands. Indeed, in their prime both DEVO and the Pixies made music that was ahead of its time, and these performances proved that we’re still catching up. Also, these historical shows actually allowed listeners to appreciate utterly familiar material in a new light. People associate DEVO with synthesizers, clackety sequencers, and ‘80s-sounding drum machines, but revisiting Q: Are We Not Men… reminded us that above all, this group began as a hard-hitting rock band – albeit one that saw things through their own bizarre universe. After a selection of DEVO’s incredible, strange promo films from the ‘70s, the band hit the stage to the driving strains of “Uncontrollable Urge,’ the first song from Q: Are We Not Men…, and proceeded to blaze through the whole album. Despite the vintage of both the players and the material, the music sounded fresh and new: vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Mark Mothersbaugh spiraled across the stage with the nerdcore energy of a high-school track star/mathlete, bassist/singer Jerry Casale grooved like Fred Astaire mixed with a spastic chimp (that’s a compliment), superstar drummer Josh Freese pounded away like he was inventing punk rock, and guitarists Bob 1 and Bob 2 made animal howls scream out of their six strings. Vivid, high-powered versions of “Mongoloid,” the trademark singalong “Jocko Homo,” and their brutal deconstruction of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” all had the crowd rabid. It was stunning to hear the album all the way through like this, treated like a punk symphony, but the power of the band came through as well in the non-lp encore, which climaxed with a crushing version of the DEVO classic “Gates of Steel.” DEVO may actually sound better now than they did back in the day: with shows like these, it’s great DEVO understand they still have a duty now, for the future…

The Pixies proved just as classic and futuristic in their approach to older, beloved material. After a kick-ass, irreverent set by openers No Age – whose garage-meets-shoegaze blast raised the bar for the headliners – the Pixies started the show with the surrealist film Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel, which is referred to in the “slicing up eyeballs” line from Doolittle’s classic “Debaser.” Then Black Francis, Kim Deal, Mike Lovering and Joey Santiago all came out in near darkness, starting the proceedings provocatively with a slew of unfamiliar b-sides. But when the band kicked into the brutal debaser “Debaser,” it was clear that this was going to be a hell of a ride. The band’s stage production was incredible: strange, humorous films played behind them, and an enormous light set resembling a molecule chain undulated behind them, but it was the interplay of the band that was the highlight. The Pixies circa 2009 is a much, much better band than the earlier vintage: guitars crunched with whipcrack dynamics, drums thundered and stuttered with precision, and the vocals were energetic and, dare I say it, better than the album version. Above all, for all the talk of inter-band aggro, the members looked like they were having the time of their lives. And so was the audience, singing along to absolutely indelible, legendary songs like “Wave of Mutilation,” “There Goes My Gun,” “Gouge Away” and an absolutely monumental, crowd-participation monster version of “Monkey Gone to Heaven.” The greatest moment, like DEVO’s the night before, came during the non-album encore, the closer “Into The White.” Driven by Kim Deal’s ethereal vocal, this was a psychedelic barnstormer that gave Spacemen 3 a run for its money, driving the groove into kaleidoscopic insanity. It was a perfect way to go into the night, our memories and nostalgia given a perfectly good roughhousing by bands that are as good – and really, better – than they ever were.

BONUS! Free Live EP from The Pixies that corresponds to the show at Pitchfork