David Byrne
\nNorwood Concert Hall<\/p>\n
Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
Talking Heads, as their name suggests, were very much a high concept band and, like other Seventies exponents of art pop such as Devo and Kraftwerk, their\u2019s was a studied, highly theatrical persona. So it is not just refreshing, but a complete surprise, to find Talking Head frontman David Byrne so affably direct as he lights up the stage at the Norwood Concert Hall.<\/p>\n
With a platinum quiff and dressed in matching grey shirt and slacks, the impish Byrne looks like a rather natty locksmith as he greets a seriously adoring crowd of late forty-somethings, primed for a close look into the eyeball of one of late 20th century culture\u2019s more interesting Heads. He is going to open, he tells us, with a tune used for the soundtrack of Dirty Pretty Things – Glass, Concrete and Stone, from his highly-crafted Nonesuch CD Grown Backwards. The band is as sharp as a pin – Paul Frazier on bass and vocals, percussionist Mauro Refosco and drummer Graham Hawthorn – all tangling with a relaxed and agile Byrne, while the Texas- based Tosca Strings, as young and beamish as they are accomplished, bow up a storm.<\/p>\n
The set is a mix of old and new, arcane and lovingly familiar. Byrne delivers staccato Dada (I Zimbra ? ) from Cafe Voltaire and The Great Intoxication from the under-rated Eyeball album, and then it is back to the Golden Years – Road to Nowhere, the arcadian And She Was and the irresistible riff of Once in A Lifetime. Those hardwired to songs about buildings and food are in a swoon. One zealot seated behind me is treating the occasion as his only personal karaoke much to the outrage of those nearby. A major dust-up is only averted by the broad-shouldered gentleman next to me reaching back and restraining the unwelcome soloist until security comes along.<\/p>\n
David Byrne is oblivious to these finer details of crowd control. Instead he is investigating everything from vernacular opera – a charmingly crooned Un di Felice, Eterea from La Traviata – to esoteric Hendrix (One Rainy Wish from Axis Bold as Love) and Cole Porter\u2019s (theme for our fifth row vocalist, perhaps ) Don\u2019t Fence Me In. But it is the Heads material that kicks in – Psycho Killer – a fafafafafafa better thing, the recent treasure Like Humans Do, and, from the Naked album, a prophetic howl of New York City paranoia, Blind.<\/p>\n
With the band in a fluent groove and the Toscas stringing along in perfect sync the music is fast, loud and light. David Byrne does some of the old moves – reverse marches and back-of-the-stage duck walks – only to reappear to sing Heaven, with vox angelica, and the X-Press 2 club hit, Lazy, with enough style and clever irony to show that David Byrne is not just the Same as He Ever Was, he is growing forwards as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cKicking Heads\u201d The Adelaide Review, No.262, March 4, 2005, p.24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
David Byrne Norwood Concert Hall Murray Bramwell Talking Heads, as their name suggests, were very much a high concept band and, like other Seventies exponents of art pop such as Devo and Kraftwerk, their\u2019s was a studied, highly theatrical persona. So it is not just refreshing, but a complete surprise, to find Talking Head frontman David Byrne so affably direct as he lights up the stage at the Norwood Concert Hall. With a platinum quiff and dressed in matching grey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1243,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/1243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}