Byrne’s show was already highly developed for the proscenium stage. It’s a heady mix, delivered with humour and verve. His structures may be unconventional, but he synthesises a lot of traditions, not just American ones: lyrical pop, Brazilian funk and groove, the Broadway songbook and a dollop of Motown. His songs are heavy on traditional American forms – notably call and response. At other times, he’s at the back, letting the others strut. Bassist Bobby Wooten and guitarist Angie Swan had me transfixed.īyrne is sometimes at the centre of it all, his arms outstretched like a preacher. What we hear is played live, as Byrne demonstrates, building a song voice by voice, to show how good the band is. It’s a clockwork performance, without tape loops or stage tricks. The lighting is intricate and timed to the millisecond. The whole show is choreographed within an inch, each musician taking his or her place in a crafty design that makes full use of the enclosed cube of stage. As Molly would say, do yourself a favour. It’s the right film for the times, a blast of joy and high spirits. There are four or five drummers, not just one, splitting the kit so the players can move, like an American marching band. Everyone carries their instrument, even the keyboardist, and everyone dances. This time, there are no fixed trappings of a band – no amps, no drum kit, no mic stands, no wires. He reverses the idea of the original film. The suit became famous, like his arm-chopping movements during the hypnotic lyric: “Same as it ever was … same as it ever was …”ĭavid Byrne (centre), and cast: the whole show is meticulously choreographed. Byrne thought as much about the big suit he would wear in the film as the staging. Byrne met co-founders Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1973. Talking Heads were more punk than rock in that sense, but more art school than either. The big rock bands used millions of dollars worth of artifice, lighting and smoke. It brought the bones to the fore: you could see how a song and a band was built, from raw sounds. In that one, roadies moved drums and amps and percussion onto the stage after the show had begun, so that it took about four songs before the whole band was assembled. He brings on musicians one at a time – as he did in Stop Making Sense, the 1984 documentary that redefined the live concert film. Shot at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway before COVID-19, the show offers a modified version of Byrne's album American Utopia, with a good helping of Talking Heads hits. David Byrne (left) and Spike Lee at a New York screening.
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