Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Member Review: David Byrne



Member "Big Bob" Dancer wrote us:
.............................It's a little crazy for David Byrne to conduct a "Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour" without Brian Eno, but that didn't stop the maestro.

IMHO, Byrne's periodic sessions with Eno have resulted in many of his finest moments, from the pair's prophetic 1981 collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, to, most notably, the trilogy of 1978-1980 Eno-produced masterpieces by Talking Heads, a run of albums that evolved the band's nervous new wave into muscular, worldly funk.

Though the impetus of the tour is Byrne and Eno's cordial new record, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (hear it at http://www.everythingthathappens.com/index.html), David offered up one hell of a set list. Too, it wasn't surprising that it was the Talking Heads standards that most fired up the crowd.

After a energetic and prolonged standing ovation for an early performance of "Houses in Motion," the audience remained on its feet, migrating toward the aisles where designated dancing spaces had been set up. Silver and wiry, but otherwise showing few signs of his 56 years, Byrne did his share of dancing, too, assisted not only by his three backup singers but also by a trio of pretty young dancers. The trio's golly-gee choreography could have been ripped straight from the High School Musical playbook (save, perhaps, for a bizarre accompaniment that turned "My Big Hands" from Byrne's 1981 solo suite The Catherine Wheel into a sort of balletic re-imagination of the "Thriller" zombie dance). The dancers added undeniable momentum to Byrne's already hard-driving show.

Everything That Happens is perhaps his most wide-eyed album yet, and it's therefore only fitting that he should promote it with such a open and upbeat tour.

There were 3 encores:

Encore #1:
“Take Me to the River”
“The Great Curve”

Encore #2:
“Air”
“Burning Down the House”

Encore #3:
“Everything that Happens will Happen Today”

What can I say about being backstage? It was my first time ever, and it was totally mind-blowing. First off, meeting Byrne was a dream come true. He was cordial and friendly and endured my gawking at him like a love-struck schoolgirl.

To see everything that really goes in to putting a show like this together gave me a brand new appreciation for live performance as a genre. Man, there are a lot of people back there working their asses off.

Thank you BPD for making this happen.

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