I think I'm as guilty as the next sentient being ( or, indeed, blogger ) of overusing such words as "legend" and "iconic" when describing actors, writers, musicians, football players ( well, maybe not football players ) and suchlike... but in this case I think I'm justified. Ladies, gentlemen, people of all persuasions, let me present to you the legendary, the iconic David Byrne. ( Applause. )
Ahem. Okay, that was a bit over the top but - bloody hell - David Byrne! I never thought I'd get to see him play live, and certainly knew that the famously grouchy Talking Heads would never reform, so when the opportunity arose to get tickets for Byrne's
Who Is The Sky tour, I had to jump at it. The gig also gave Sarah and me an excuse to spend a few days in Manchester, so we were "mad fer it", to coin a phrase. We had a mostly trouble-free drive up to The North ( apart from some bloke in a black Audi trying to kill everyone on the M6 with his insane driving ) and then had a lovely day in Manchester, seeing the sights, watching trams from coffee shop windows, and parakeets in
Whitworth Park - yes, they have a flock of bright green parakeets flitting around the trees there, alongside the more traditional squirrels and a surprising number of rats. After a day of hoofing it around the city, we cheated slightly by getting a taxi from our hotel to the Apollo - we're not getting any younger you know!
After seating ourselves in the plush environs of the Apollo ( yes, it was a seated event - not usually my first choice, but... David Byrne... ) we had time for a drink and then the show started. Well, even before the show started a familiar, dryly humorous voice came over the tannoy to inform us of the evening's safety procedures - yes, it was Mr. Byrne. He advised that the management were okay with us dancing by our seats, but asked us not to dance in the aisles because, in the event of a fire, those people would have an unfair advantage. Sensible, really. A few minutes later the show proper began as Byrne, accompanied only by a keyboard player, a cellist and a violinist stepped out onto the stage to play a beautifully haunting version of old Talking Heads song Heaven. The musicians/dancers/singers ( they really multi-tasked! ) all wore bright orange boiler suits and carried their instruments with them at all times, often strapped to their chests, with no amps or leads in their way as they constantly sashayed around the stage. It was almost like a musical theatre show ( be afraid, be very afraid ) but, er, was better than that. Behind ( and underneath! ) the band were giant screens, which showed backdrops ranging from the surface of the Moon to Byrne's apartment. In fact, Heaven saw DB and friends standing on the lunar surface as the Earth rose behind them throughout the song. "There's our Heaven - there she is" said the main man, pointing at the Blue Marble, "...the only one we've got."
In a similar vein to the legendary Stop Making Sense movie, the band then began to assemble around Byrne and they groooooved their way into Everybody Laughs, one of the standout songs from the Who Is The Sky album. The mood instantly switched to *Partay!* mode as everyone indeed laughed, as well as sung, clapped, cheered and danced - we were all out of our seats with no intention of sitting back down. The upbeat, infectious music lifted everybody up, as scenes from urban ( NYC? ) life played out on the screen behind the band. And the hits kept coming as the 12-piece band then floated into Heads classic And She Was - another literally uplifting tale of a woman who found herself soaring above her neighbourhood, "drifting this way and that." Byrne, in one of his occasional introductions, explained this song was inspired by a strange girl he once met who he didn't realise at the time was on LSD...
And here's our view of her view...
To be honest, I wish we could have been just a little closer, so we could have seen more of the dancing and the musicians performing ( and I could have taken better photos ), but those seats were the best I could get. It still looked fantastic, though.
The Remain In Light-era funk of Houses In Motion was scorching hot and the band played their hearts out. They were an incredibly tight, soulful ensemble and all seemed to be loving what they were doing. Byrne himself was constantly moving, constantly interacting with the band and generally being awesome. And his voice sounded fantastic, with all the old familiar inflections and tones - same as it ever was, in fact. ( See what I did there? ) It's hard to believe the guy is 73 - if I have a tenth of his energy in ( gulp! ) just over 13 years, I'll be very happy.
DB dipped into less familiar eras of his solo career ( for me, at least ) with songs such as T-Shirt and Strange Overtones, but it was interesting to hear this material, and it all felt of a piece with the other songs. The cheeky Latin groove of Independence Day brought a smile to our collective face, while Like Humans Do became an instant singalong fave for people like me who'd never heard it before. Apparently, there's some connection with the launch of Windows XP involving this song but I really don't remember that. Back to Talking Heads songs and there were hugely excited reactions for ( Nothing But ) Flowers and This Must Be The Place ( Naive Melody ) - apparently Byrne likes his ( parentheses ) as much as ( I ) do. The African guitar sounds and post-apocalyptic parable of the former were a blast of sunshine, comparing the consumer society shown below to a world without humans: "This was a discount store, now it's turned into a cornfield." Sometimes that sounds like a good idea. This Must Be The Place had us all singing "Woo-hoo" like we were a bunch of owls ( you had to be there ) and convinced us that this was indeed the place.
A couple of songs, and their introductions by JB - When We Are Singing and My Apartment Is My Friend - showed how much the Covid-19 pandemic affected his song-writing and outlook on the world. He told us that, just as the restrictions were lifting, he went for a walk around New York and wondered what that strange sound was that he could hear all around him. And then he realised - it was the sound of people talking, people laughing, people interacting. He said that it brought home to him just how much we as a species need human interaction and companionship. In fact, the whole performance seemed to be informed by this need to make a connection - and isn't that what all art is about? Ironically, this was all lost on the woman behind us, who had been screaming and whooping throughout the more well-known songs, and was now calling out "Who cares? Get on with the music!" Some people...
And this is apparently a view inside Byrne's actual apartment. Very nice.
In the home stretch, DB brought out some of the big Heads hitters. Starting with the paranoid, jittery New Wave of Psycho Killer and then going into the even more paranoid and jittery, not to mention prophetic, Life During Wartime. As Byrne sang his strange 1980s premonition of America becoming a fractured, violence-ridden Third World country, the screen flashed up images of people on the streets of the USA confronting the goons of Trump's fascistic ICE organisation. Embedded in the red hot funk of this classic song was a chilling reminder of what's actually happening to 'Merica at the moment, as their much-vaunted liberties are being eroded by the Orange Idiot and his supporters. This was a very powerful moment and got a huge cheer from the crowd.
"Watch out! You might get what you're after." We did, in spades.
After all this, we staggered out of the Apollo, tired but happy, secure in the knowledge that we'd seen one of the greatest shows ever. ( Well, that's certainly how I felt - I might be slightly exaggerating Sarah's take on the gig lol. ) Even the slight Manchester drizzle couldn't dampen our spirits as we headed back to our hotel, only stopping for some cheesy chips in a late night takeaway and a quick chat with another Byrne fan, who told us tall tales of watching Joy Division back before they were famous. It was that kind of a night. True stories, legends, myths, confessions, music, music, music.
