Quote Of The Day

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

David Byrne...

Last night Paul and I went to the Royal Festival Hall to see one of our heroes, David Byrne. He is currently touring with a show that promotes his recent album with one of our other heroes, Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. The show is built around not only this album but also all the other collaborative works that Byrne and Eno have both worked on; My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, the three Talking Heads' albums More Songs About Buildings And Food, Fear Of Music and the sublime Remain In Light.

The show was spot on. Great sound, great singing and great visuals. The dancers were excellent and the theatrical nature of the show had strong echoes of the Stop Making Sense tour.

Dressed in white, Dave joked about how we could all take photos of the concert if we wanted but that we should only upload the good ones online - security would be checking for any bad ones on the way out and deleting them.

The set list was pretty much as you might expect and included all out favourites Air, Houses In Motion, Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On), Once in a Lifetime, Take Me To The River, Life During Wartime and Heaven.

Everyone was on their feet dancing half way through the show and we had forty minutes of encores.

Top track of the night: Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
Moment of the night: Eno appearing to sing on the final encore (there were four in total)

5 comments:

  1. We were on the front row for the Nottingham show. K had a panic attack halfway through and had to leave.

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  2. Oh no! So you didn't see the end of the show?

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  3. Oh, the rest of us saw the end of the show. K was OK by himself, but he couldn't face coming back in.

    Very weird experience, being that far forward. We were literally inches from the front of the stage, and only a few feet from Byrne himself. Perhaps, in retrospect, we were too close... there's a lot to be said for a bit of distance between performer and audience.

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  4. Anonymous6:53 am

    you need to go to the roundhouse soon as he has a show going on there to do with his project which he released at the armory in Manhattan. It's all to do with creating a piano which can be played utilising the naturally occurring pipes and objects within a building.

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  5. Mike: we were right at the back of our show. In row WW of all places. But got a great view and really didn't suffer for being where we were. Funny that, isn't it? When I was young I always wanted to be at the front. Now I like to be at the back. Old age... :)

    Anon: I'll check it out. Always up for a bit of artiness.

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