Motörhead aren't a band you'd readily associate with Jarvis Cocker, but it's Lemmy's metal survivors who have been selected to kick off this year's Cocker-curated Meltdown music festival on the South Bank. The rest of the line-up is no less left field, running the gamut from 1960s folk singer Melanie to the children's TV theme cover act KPM Allstars.

At the heart of the programme is one of pop's great high-concept groups, Devo. David Bowie hailed the electro-provocateurs from Ohio as 'the band of the future' in 1977, while Richard Branson offered them a job backing John Lydon after the Sex Pistols broke up.

Wisely, they turned the Virgin boss down, achieving massive success in their own right in the 1980s before fading from view at the end of the decade. The Meltdown appearance will be their first London gig in more than 15 years.

The band took their name from the theory of 'de-evolution' - the notion that, rather than evolving, mankind is regressing. It's an idea for which the band found plenty of evidence in the conformism and dysfunction of 1970s American society.

According to founding member Gerald V Casale, de-evolution has become more relevant in the intervening decades. 'It's not a theory any more,' he says, pointing to the various ills dominating world affairs today. 'We're in it. It's happened.' Casale appreciates the irony of Devo, a group of outsiders who wrote songs mocking the herd mentality of conventional society, finding success in the social mainstream.

'People got off on the surface style,' he says. It wasn't necessary to understand, or agree with, the new wave pioneers' message to succumb to the quirky appeal of their jerky synth pop, be it the brilliant deconstruction of the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction or the gold-selling hit Whip It with its S&M overtones.

Back in the 1970s, Devo were at the cutting edge of new technology, using early synthesisers and experimenting with crude electronic drums.

Today their appeal is distinctly retro. 'People are now enthralled by analogue sounds,' says Casale. Three decades on, the Devo men are still offering an authentic slice of 1970s art-rock, avant-garde action.

And Casale has a promise for all new converts too young to remember the band the first time round: 'I'm sure we will frighten the youth - for their own good.'

Meltdown starts tomorrow and runs until June 23. www.southbankcentre.co.uk/meltdown/ Devo play Meltdown on Tue, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank SE1, 7.30pm, £30 to £45. Tel: 0870 380 0400.

Tube: Waterloo/Embankment Also Jun 26, Shepherd's Bush Empire, Shepherd's Bush Green W12, 7pm, £35. Tel: 0870 060 0100.

Tube: Shepherd's Bush