David Byrne live at the Ravenna Festival (Pala De André, 19th July 2018)
The band in motion
Expectations for this show were raised when David Byrne announced that this was his most ambitious stage project since the celebrated ‘Stop Making Sense’ Talking Heads tour which has been captured for posterity by Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking 1984 concert movie.
Fortunately, it doesn’t disappoint.
It is a visual and aural treat from start to finish not least because all the conventional trappings of rock gigs are radically reimagined and redefined. The show is based on the core idea of enabling singers and musicians to be mobile on an empty stage.
To achieve this, Byrne performs with a 12 piece ‘untethered’ band (including six percussionists) who use wireless technology and carry their instruments around with them. The necessary minimalism is made possible by hiding the mixing desk, speakers and other props behind a lightweight chain link metal curtain.
Of course, success also depends on the quality of the music and the skill of the performers. From the word go, neither of these two elements is in doubt.
As leader of Talking Heads and throughout his solo career, David Byrne has consistently examined the strange rituals of human behavior as though from the perspective of an inquisitive alien. Not for him the standard lovey-dovey clichés of commercial pop; his songs are frequently about the cities we live in, the cars we drive, the food we eat, the TV we watch and the music we like.
On his most recent single, ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House‘, he sings “We’re only tourists in this life”. The song is on American Utopia, his first solo release for over a decade. The album’s title is not meant to be ironic. On his website, Byrne explains it “is not so much about a utopia, as it is about our longing, frustration, aspirations, fears, hopes regarding what could be, and is possible”.
Such thoughts dovetail neatly with Byrne’s ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’ , a project conceived in 2017 to locate and publicize stories of hope and luminous thinking in all walks of life as an antidote to the depressing tales of doom and gloom that dominate the news feed.
Byrne’s endorsement of HeadCount relates to his belief that exercising the right to vote is fundamental in the quest for democratic change in society. There is no doctrinaire subtext beyond his affirmation of the need for active citizenship.
The most direct political message of the show comes with the closing song; Janelle Monáe’s powerful call and response piece called ‘Hell You Taimbout‘ cataloguing some of the numerous victims of police violence in the USA. Even here, Byrne’s introduction is low-key; merely inviting the audience to Google the names called out to understand the song’s significance.
Shadowplay during ‘Blind’
Not surprisingly, it’s the Talking Heads tracks that garner the most enthusiastic response. The beat always goes on for ‘Born Under Punches’ and who can resist a whoop of approval for ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’ or be uplifted by a strident rendition of ‘Blind’.
Half way in, ‘Once In A Lifetime’ gets people out of their seats and dancing in front of the stage. At this point, Byrne could easily have played safe by running through other favorites from his rich back catalogue. However, he has never been one to milk nostalgia for its own sake and so the rest of the set list is an eclectic mix of hits, new material and relative obscurities. Despite this, Byrne is not oblivious to customer demand; the main set ends with the guaranteed crowd pleaser ‘Burning Down The House’.
The more recent songs are weaker but still grab the attention thanks largely to the inspired choreography of New York’s Big Dance Theater’s Annie-B Parson. She skillfully incorporates Byrne’s awkward movements, a state of affairs acknowledged in the lyrics to ‘I Dance Like This’: “I’m working on my dancing – this is the best I can do”.
All the performers are dressed in matching grey Kenzo suits and every aspect of the show is meticulously planned and executed right down to the between song patter. Paradoxically, this rigidity seems to free up the performers to express themselves.
It all serves to confirm the notion, which Byrne had observed in Japanese theater, that artificiality and exaggeration can be just as authentic and joyful as shows that are ostensibly more spontaneous.
If you’re in need of reasons to be cheerful, catch this show if you can.
