When you spend a lifetime covering albums and live concerts, there are certain things you just resign yourself to. Uncomfortable levels of security. The obligatory encore break and return. Too many people too close for comfort and the sticky feeling of spilt beer on the ground. And most obviously, that three, four or five members of a band will be looking towards the crowd, largely stationary singing towards them. There will occasionally be clapping. Sometimes, a singer might raise his arms up in a Jesus Christ post. They might call on you to singalong. But generally, with the exception of the long defunct Israeli rock band, Monotonix, it’s pretty much the same song, the same story for almost any band or artist you can see. Thank all that is goodness that we live in the same reality as David Byrne. Both in his time with Talking Heads and in his impressive solo career, he has been the pace car for forward thinking innovation in popular music. Amidst industry circles, a mere mention of his name is usually followed immediately with a sideways glance and the immediate utterance of the words “elder statesman.”
Over the years in his solo output, he had been reinventing the formulation of what a live concert experience could be. In 2018 following the release of his heralded American Utopia album his live performance evolved into the massively impressive array that he has been utilizing since: a large group of performers, backing singers and dancers all in the same mono-color uniform completely untethered from stationary performance, and all executing their parts fully wirelessly. The stage instead of a cramped area trying to make room for instruments and amplification is used fully as a completely activated space. The group moves in formation with simplistic yet vibrant choreography, treating the stage as a canvas to create an endless series of configurations. There is obvious preparation in every song’s routine, but the performers are able to loosely find the groove in the pocket, improvising in subtle and fluid ways. It also gives Byrne the chance to potentially have a chorus on backup as large as twelve voices if desired. Every little piece adds a ton to the mixture. After years of missing this show in previous tours, it was a special point of excitement to have a chance to see the first night of a three-night stand of David Byrne performing in this manner on August 28th at the famed Hollywood Bowl.
This was a set filled with transcendent moments offset by joyous fun. The stage floor and three large video walls all could be shown with different presentation, colors or video. The show opened with the first of these transcendent moments, a small cadre of the performers joined Byrne for a soulful and glorious rendition of his Talking Heads-era song “Heaven.” The floor was set to look like a lunar landscape and the video walls a visage of deep space. The Earth slowly rose in the background as the group masterfully emoted, “Heaven is a place / A place where nothing / Nothing ever happens.” Byrne looked back at the Earth following the song’s conclusion and quipped plaintively, “There she is. The only heaven we have. As seen on TV.” The set was divided between classic Talking Heads cuts like that and gems from his solo catalog. “And She Was” introduced by way of anecdote Byrne describing a conversation he had with a woman when he grew up where she happily professed taking drugs and laying in the grass. He didn’t follow her advice, but he did craft the incredible song years later. It was only a small piece of what was to come, but the crowd was already singing along happily.
The set design mutated into imagery of a vibrant city nightlife scene and “Houses in Motion” became a funked out, party of exuberant chaos. The total power of Byrne’s performance ensemble became apparent here as they all crisscrossed each other in high-speed swirling in different concentric patterns. The finale became a powerful crescendo as his keyboardist took held notes to noisy and tremulant heights. “T-Shirt” became a fun series of presentations of slogans on the video walls, each drawing greater and greater cheers, especially “Make America Gay Again” and “No Kings.” Later, “When We Are Singing” became a nuanced master class in the subtle sprinkling of elements and mounting choral backup. It was like watching a rainbow being born from nothingness, one glorious inch at a time. “Slippery People” from Speaking in Tongues brought the dance party element back to the center stage, and perhaps presciently written in its original creation stated, “God help us, help us lose our minds / These slippery people help us understand.” The way out to a better performance may just come from unlearning everything our standard notions of convention call us to do.
As the set drew to its close the mounting excellence of the show brought the capacity crowd to its feet, people everywhere dancing along in elated glee. The three that closed the set proper doubled down on the vertex of pop sensibility and artistic brilliance. “Psycho Killer” was all cathartic power and became the night’s most ecstatic singalong. An amped up and more harmony vocal infused version of “Life During Wartime” from Talking Heads’ Fear of Music followed, and this one mutated the party politics into poignant state of the world reckoning. The simple refrain of “This ain’t no party / This ain’t no disco / This ain’t no fooling around” exploded with projected footage of attempted I.C.E. arrests and protests against autocracy done worldwide. The nimble ensemble then brought forth the iconic looped keyboard tones and simplistic bass notes that unforgettably herald the beginning of the legendary “Once in a Lifetime,” a brilliant song alternating between lucid awakening spoken word and danceable world-weary triumph.
The encore simply included “Everybody’s Coming to My House” which Byrne couched as to how people just want to be together and how important that is. It all ended the logical way it could, with a carefree performance of his Talking Heads-era mega hit, “Burning Down the House.” As the song went to outro a credits list was displayed on the back video wall listing all thirteen performers with Byrne’s name last. Over what seems like thousands of shows in a long career, nothing has ever taken advantage of the space and auditory range available so well as this performance. This was a master class in rethinking the banality of the perceived concert experience. The only issue on hand with something as inspired and enrapturing as this is that if you have not already taken the steps necessary to see this show, you may already be too late. Byrne is an artist in the truest sense of the word. He may find that the expressions required a complete reimagining all over again. And like the greatest creators the last several decades have gifted us with—Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Daft Punk—he will be light years ahead of the rest of us, and rightfully so. Seeing with clarity the reality we could be operating in, and perhaps one so good, it’s beyond what we even deserve. If this does persist, and Byrne continues to utilize this approach, do yourself a favor, and make this be the one show you ensure you see in your whole life before it’s too late.
File photo by Kalyn Oyer
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