White shirt, white slacks, white shoes, white strat ... and almost white hair. It's David Byrne, and band, and dancers, all dressed to match.
Billed as David Byrne, Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno, this was a chance to hear live some of the best songs ever (can you tell I'm a fan?), along with numbers from Byrne & Eno's latest collaboration 'Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'.
Of course, a good chunk of the set was made up from this latest offering. While not (IMO) reaching anything like the heights of the Eno-produced Talking Heads albums ('More Songs About Buildings A Food', 'Fear of Music', & 'Remain In Light') nor the seminal first Byrne/Eno offering 'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts', and sounding much more like Byrne's more recent solo work, 'Everything That Happens' is still enjoyable and live the songs played worked very well, sounding better than on record.
Which new songs did he play? With my music nerd days long gone I can't tell you, sorry. But they were more than filler to this Heads obsessive, even though I - like most others I suspect - were there mostly for a dose of nostalgia.
So the classics? Sadly, nothing original from 'More Songs...', the only song played being Al Green's 'Take Me To The River'. We were treated to 'Air', 'Heaven', and 'Life During Wartime' from 'Fear Of Music'.
From 'Remain In Light' there was 'Born Under Punches', 'Crosseyed And Painless', 'Once In A Lifetime', and 'Houses In Motion'.
'Help Me Somebody', the only song played from 'Bush Of Ghosts', had Byrne doing the vocals, with him explaining beforehand that the recording used what in 1981 were called 'found vocals' and are now known as samples.
It was great to also get two extras, that (as far as I know) don't have Eno's involvement ... I think. Perhaps I'm suffering false memories, my companion says I'm wrong about this first song and it wasn't played. From Byrne's 1981 'The Catherine Wheel' there was 'My Big Hands (Fall Through The Cracks)'.
And as part of the encore, there was 'Burning Down The House'.
(Perhaps my music nerd days had some purpose after all! :-)
This fan was in heaven. The band were as tight as you'd hope and the arrangements much as you'd expect, though with a smaller band than was used on the Heads' live albums the sound was a little stripped down on that. And Byrne was on top form too, despite looking like he might be suffering a cold. The crowd loved it, really loved it.
Someone commented afterwards "I've never seen so many middle-aged people looking so happy". If Byrne can do that with us old grumpies, just imagine what he can do to kids!
Not to be missed! (yeah, OK, I'm biased :-)
article by: Neil Greenway
published: 31/03/2009 10:54
FUTURE GIGS
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