David Byrne 9/28/08 Kiva Auditorium, Albuquerque, NM
On Sunday I went to go see one of my favorite musicians of all time, David Byrne, in Albuquerque, with my good friend Martin. I first saw Byrne in 1994, with my parents, just five years removed from the final Talking Heads album. Now we’re 14 years removed from that first show; which was my first rock concert. Back in ’94 he had dark hair that was parted down the middle and down to his shoulder and at the time his solo work and The Talking Heads probably accounted for 20% of my solitary music listening. Now that number has to be down to about .5% but I’m no less a fan. Back in ’94 a lot of the songs he played had to do with the death of friends to HIV and AIDs and how weird body parts look up close, this time around most of the songs seemed to be about family living and how weird feeling okay is. Also, this time everyone was dressed in white suites and he brought along three modern dancers who performed what looked like make-em’-ups during the songs. The whole this was very artsy fartsy and the crowd seemed to love it. Like Sean Connery trying to find a cure for cancer in Medicine Man Martin and I were on the brink of beginning an amazing adventure to find a John McCain supporter in the crowd. Lots of tucked in t-shirts and recognizable bone structures around. People seemed to be happy. We didn’t find any McCain fans but Martin was happy to find a Kansas City Chiefs fan which is as close as I think we were gonna get.
Byrne just released an album with Brian Eno and half the show was songs from that album. The other half consisted of songs he had worked on with Eno back in the early 80′s either as a duo or with The Talking Heads. Those songs are some of my favorites from any artist and many of them I had never heard him perform live or in live recordings, which is always a nice treat. Those hidden gems of older, established musicians that you feel like your never gonna get to hear live.
I had a wonderful time but the experience left me missing the old days, even before ’94, when pills and powder fueled the performance, to get the crowd dancing (not thinking) was the goal, and unpolished was the means and the look. Today Byrne’s voice has never sounded better and his musicians have never sounded more accomplished but I miss the old days. Yes, I was a toddler during the old days but there’s always the great video Stop Making Sense , which if you haven’t seen you’re in for a treat, filmed by the same man who gave us The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia. Put it in the queue…trust me. I was going to post some videos and pictures of new Byrne but I’d rather show you the old days since Martin and I didn’t even break a sweat on Sunday. But thinking is fun too, you don’t have to always hop around. Check out David Byrne’s blog.
as a note, now that I’ve really talked up this show, Byrne is heading east, and will be in Redbank, NJ on November 3rd with a bunch of other dates in that region of America.
