October 1980 went to see Talking Heads at the Aragon Ballroom. Didn’t wanna go. Bought the album (Remain in Light), cool kinda, bought the concert ticket, but when the Sunday came along, didn’t wanna go. But I had to. I was broke and I couldn’t pay and not go out of laziness. Besides, I might like it. At the Lawrence L-stop I bumped into a former classmate (and eventual boyfriend) Bill, who took my mind off my antipathy. This was the tour where T.H. started delving into poly-rhythms and augmenting their line up with stellar talent (Bernie Worrell, Adrian Belew, Nona Hyndryx) under the production of Brian Eno. Remain in Light, with all its intricacies, unnatural (by top-40 standards) arrangements, mind-blowing concepts (“…remove the water … from the bottom of the ocean…”) and just-out-of-reach perspective came to life on stage. Art and intellectualism not with a pulse but with an ass-shaking percussive assault. Bill and I danced ourselves silly.
But T.H. and particularly lead singer David Bryne were always arty and just out of reach. Rolling Stone heralded them as the best band in America, but T.H.’s sales were spotty—perhaps I wasn’t the only one. 1983’s Speaking in Tongues and its top-5 single “Burning Down the House” changed all that. After the tense period with Eno on the “Remain” sessions (the other members of the band, husband and wife rhythm section, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth and keyboards man Jerry Harrison felt alienated by Eno and Bryne’s think-tank approach) and the ensuing tour T.H. essentially broke up. Bryne and Eno collaborated on MY Life in the Bush of Ghosts and later with Twyla Tharp on The Catherine Wheel. Contractual obligations necessitated the live double set, The Name of this Band is… and a quick reunion and rethinking of the band’s approach. The result, Speaking in Tongues, was heady, intellectual, arty, but warm, funky and FUNN. From there T.H. traded in the muffled dinginess of the Aragon Ballroom for Poplar Creek. Jonathan Demme’s concert film, Stop Making Sense, played for months, the soundtrack went gold, and the image of Bryne in that big suit was one of 1984’s most memorable images.
After Naked, T.H. split up for probably the last time. Harrison does production, the Frantz’ continue to perform, and Byrne has released a succession of albums. The critical and commercial response has died down considerably but all four continue to make compelling music. The case was made May 20 at a sold-out David Bryne show at the Park West. Sprinkling in a few T.H.’s classics among his solo work, he had the crowd in the grip of his hand from the start. What was disarming was the intimacy in the room—I’ve never experienced a concert audience filled with such warm emotion, from the barefoot kids dancing in the lobby to the three brothers I watched much of the show with. But it’s all Byrne’s fault. On Speaking In Tongues Byrne sang about how his “Girlfriend is Better,”—”she has the smoke in her eyes…” By “Little Creatures” he was talking about babies and “Stay Up Late (“he looks sooo cute/in his little red suit!”). Before Speaking T.H. was brittle, intellectually chilly and distant—obviously romance/marriage/family has changed all that—Bryne has opened up thematically, emotionally.
Starting with a quiet “The Revolution” he seemed embarrassed at the notion of all that adoration—more like a bewildered Andy Kaufman than the architect of a new-wave order. Fronting a percussion-heavy ensemble with augmentation from the CSO string section, Byrne broke the ice—not between him and the audience, the ice that seemingly was always in him, and gamely shook his fanny and fell into the vibe. Now with a full head of silver hair, dressed in a Buoka suit that looked like a gas station uniform, he wasn’t the mechanized duck marching nerd in the “Once in a Lifetime” video but a fleshed out 3-D modern man flushed with happy experiences. It got giddy. “Butt-Naked “was as frolicsome as the song suggested streaking was. “Nothing but Flowers” got a Brazilian workout while “Once in a Lifetime” and “What a Day that Was” came to life under the percussion live. Byrne’s first encore revealed how jolly he’d gotten—a cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” Seeing him gamely sway and sing “I wanna dance with someone who looooooves me…” put him, and where he’s been, in perspective.
In the end he didn’t do “Psycho Killer” or “Take Me to the River” or “Life During Wartime” or “Burning Down the House” and they weren’t missed. At the close of the show I felt ridiculous about the expectation down through the years (mine included) that T.H. would reunite, like that expectation that the Beatles would reunite. And make us feel good like we used to, ignoring the fact that the times and circumstances of those groups are over. The gutsy thing to do of course is to move into the present and the future and leave the past. David Bryne is a prime example.