| You don't really wnat a review before you go do you? If I t4ell you it was
brilliant do you promise to like it?!!
Anyway, I put on the video of Stop Making Sense the other night, and it's
astonishing that he hasn't changed the show at all in all those years!
The first 30-40 mins is solo Byrne on guitar and beatbox, whereas the rest of
the show has him joined by a largish band. The complete range of songs, in
both bits, from early Heads' stuff up to songs from both of Rei Momo and
Uh-Oh.
Only thing I didn't like was a a misjudged 'Sympathy for the Devil', though
this was improved by the audience doing the oo-oo for him.
And, nice to see, he seemed genuinely surprised being asked to do encores - 4
of them eventually!
grahame
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| David Byrne, Brixton Academy, 29th July 1992
I didn't really know what to expect from this show. Would Byrne have
moved away from the typical Heads show (a la Stop Making Sense)? Would
he rely on Talking Heads material to please the old fans, or would he
break completely from that and attempt to appease the die-hards with
his new latin solo efforts?
Well not much time passed in the show before it became obvious that the
old style Byrne was very much still popular, at least with Byrne
himself. On the whole I was a bit disappointed with the acoustic
interpretations - an angry, howling Road to Nowhere was pretty poor,
but I did very much like the version of (Nothing But) Flowers, which
was very effective with the switch between soulful guitar-only sections
to the upbeat parts backed by drum machine.
Some relief then when the backdrop fell to reveal the rest of the band,
raring to jump straight into a great Mr Jones. After that a long
succession of songs from Rei Momo and Uh-Oh peppered here and there
with tracks from Naked. I felt that the Rei Momo songs particularly
sounded a lot better live than in the studio, much more upbeat and
given a much better big band treatment. Even to the extreme that the
Uh-Oh numbers suffered, especially a terrible Girls On My Mind.
Old Talking Heads standards soon appeared, with the selection no
surprise at all (although I won't spoil it for you), but pleasing all
the same. A poor Sympathy for the Devil, saved only by the woo-woos,
which then went on to completely ruin a (half-hearted) Psycho Killer.
Critiscisms - only that some numbers suffered from some overkill on the
horns. Otherwise, a great show, excellent dance music, and all the Byrne
stage chracteristics which we have come to love and worry about at
length. Best number, Dirty Old Town by far.
And look out for the hilarious violinist/trumpet-player who tries his
best to dance as capably as the rest of the brass section, but fails
miserably, with the taunting of the aforementioned section making it
even better.
Have fun. Wish I was going again!
Dale.
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