For anyone over 50, the band Talking Heads and it’s front man David Byrne will be familiar to them. They were a band spawned from the art/punk rock scene of New York in the early 70’s alongside contemporaries Patti Smith, The Ramones, Television and Lou Reed. 

Forming in 1976, Talking Heads produced ground breaking albums like ’77, Remain in Light, Fear of Music and More Songs about Buildings and Food. They then rolled into commercial success with Speaking in Tongues and Little Creatures in the mid 80’s and made lots of money whilst maintaining a high level of artistic credibility.

After disbanding in 1988, Byrne went on a journey of musical discovery making albums with his good friend Brian Eno, writing film soundtracks (for which he won an Oscar) and indulging in his passion for Latin and African music after which he was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall Fame. In 2018, at the ripe old age of 66 he put together David Byrne’s Utopia, a stage show that toured almost 150 dates around the world.

In October 2019, the Oscar winning director Spike Lee filmed the show over 5 nights at the Hudson Theatre in Broadway NYC and the result is simply stunning. You genuinely feel like you are on stage for the best part of the film, as though the cameras were in the lapels of the artists.

Byrne has always been a deep thinker and quite introverted in real life so it’s no surprise to see him in the opening scene on a chair with a human brain clasped in his hand on a wooden table. He provides us with a loose thread for the night around the fact that as babies, we start with millions of neural pathways that we choose to disregard and waste as we grow older. 

Before long the stage is taken up by 11 of the finest musicians from all parts of the world, all barefoot and dressed in grey suits. All the musicians are wireless and wearing harnesses like a marching band enabling them to move with total freedom. Almost half the troupe is percussion and for me personally I found these guys gave the old Talking Heads songs new life. There were only 3 other people in the Rivoli with us and I very nearly got up and did a disturbing dance complete with “white man overbite” that no doubt would have had me thrown out. 🙂 Many of the Talking Heads songs are derived from tribal rhythms which are highly contagious! I dare you to play “Crosseyed and Painless” or “I Zimbra” and stand still!

The musicianship and the choreography is incredible as are the moves by the 2 lead dancers who bring some quirky David Byrne-like actions throughout the show, all with a huge smile.

Byrne has never been far away from politics and championing the underdog. He highlights the need for people to vote quite dramatically using the theatre’s house lighting and pays tribute to black lives lost by doing a powerful rendition of “Hell you Talmbout”, a song that was sung at the Washington Women’s March in 2017, accentuated with images of parents holding large photos of their children killed by police.

As the show heads to a close, Byrne takes us back to thinking about all those neural threads we have chosen to discard and believes that it’s possible to mend those connections, which for him is via relationships and music. He freely admits he’s still working on it every day.

As if the audience isn’t connected enough after nearly 2 hours, the troupe does an acapella version of Road to Nowhere followed by full band thumping it out and marching through the theatre to the delight of the punters. Then it’s out the exit door, quick change and all the band on bicycles pedalling home on a freezing New York evening. 

David Byrne has always seemed complex, introverted and private. He is autistic and proof of what can be achieved despite having such a disability. What this concert film delivers is a man who is still hungry and creative, being driven by a group of formidable, younger artists. He looks incredibly fit, his voice is as good as it was 40 years ago and he’s clearly engaged and having a ball. 

It’s been a crappy 2020, so if you’re looking for some pure joy to separate you from the last 11 months, this might kick start it!  9/10. Here’s the Trailer.

Of course this isn’t the first concert film David Byrne has appeared in. You have to go back to 1984, but this film directed by another Oscar winner, Jonathan Demme was very successful at the time.