The stagecraft is incredibly inventive, tailored for each song. The only thing to watch is the musicians filling the stage, all clad in identical grey suits and all bare footed. This time he’s achieved his ambition the stage is entirely empty, a stripped-bare cuboid surrounded back and sides by a heavy chain-link curtain. Although the mic stands, drum kit and keyboards remained in fixed positions, the band members were otherwise free to move as they played. In 2012 he toured a joint show with St Vincent accompanied by a kind of marching brass band (it’s much better than it sounds! – see this NPR footage of some highlights). His band included three dancers and Byrne and his backing vocalists were blended into the choreography although the other musicians were mostly fixed to their positions (example in this song). His 2009 live shows began to experiment with contemporary dance. This feels like a culmination of a concept Byrne’s been developing for some time. And this gives Byrne the opportunity to create a true spectacle of music and movement. As Byrne explains to the audience, people most like to look at other people, so why not try to remove everything else from the stage. ![]() Everything is wireless, instruments strapped to the musicians, and the movements are expertly choreographed by Annie-B Parson. The bare stage means the focus is on the musicians and their movementsīyrne set out with a large ensemble band, but uniquely each of the musicians was completely untethered. It might be that Covid 19 has made me feel particularly gig- and theatre-deprived, but this film took me back to these performances and the exuberance of live concerts. I was lucky to catch this tour twice – once at the New Orleans Jazzfest in its abbreviated outdoor stage incarnation and a couple of months later the full show, right up front at the Hammersmith Apollo, London. We get a mix of new songs and Talking Heads classics.Ī disclaimer: I am a David Byrne fan and I’ve seen him perform live a few times, so this is not an unbiased review. In 2018 Byrne toured his ‘American Utopia’ album and the following year adapted the show for a residency at New York’s Hudson Theatre, filmed for this movie. It’s an exhilarating, joyful experience with the most inventive staging I think I’ve ever seen at a live gig. ![]() David Byrne’s new concert film American Utopia, directed by Spike Lee, might just steal that crown. When best-ever music films are discussed, Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense always seems to come out top, with Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz a close rival.
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