It’s been 50 years since David Byrne first introduced his trademark brand of quirky pop-punk/world music fusion to audiences as the frontman of Talking Heads—note the lack of “the” in front of their name, as their 1982 live album clarified—yet Wednesday night’s An Evening with David Byrne at the Auditorium Theatre found the 73-year-old at his most vibrant, youthful, and playful.
As anyone who has seen—or, more accurately, experienced—the classic 1984 film Stop Making Sense is well aware, a David Byrne show is not an exercise in a group of musicians merely reproducing studio work on stage. These exquisite productions are more living art installations than concerts, where even the most minimal moments are precisely choreographed and spectacle is the default setting, whether in the form of an oversized white suit or 15 musicians clad in head-to-toe blue, making their way through a mix of Talking Heads classics, selections from Byrne’s solo career, and even a Paramore cover.
Only four of those musicians were present for the beautifully sparse opening arrangement of “Heaven,” a stark contrast from what was to follow. “Everybody Laughs,” the lead cut from Byrne’s latest solo album, Who is the Sky?, kicked off the party vibe that lasted for nearly the entire show, with Byrne’s casual and genuinely funny banter breaking up the remarkable visual and audio odyssey of the show’s 21 songs. One amusing highlight was his presentation of a photograph he entitled “Feeding Time on Michigan Avenue”: a group of pigeons eating spaghetti on the sidewalk. He later preceded “My Apartment is My Friend” with a picture of his gorgeous, spacious NYC, informing the audience with tongue firmly in cheek that, “It’s a nice apartment in New York. It might not be a nice apartment in Chicago, but you’ll have to take my word for it.”
Other imagery throughout the show was less comical but more powerful, including a montage of ICE protest footage appropriately displayed alongside the iconic 1979 Talking Heads single “Life During Wartime.” Talking Heads songs inevitably received the biggest outpouring of energy from the crowd, with the early appearance of “And She Was” a particular audience favorite. “Houses in Motion,” with its red mood lighting and groovy dance moves, also scored a big reaction.
With five decades of performance under his belt, it’s no surprise that Byrne is a master showman, but what he and his incredible band accomplish on stage cannot be prescribed solely to experience. He remains one of America’s most creative, boundary-pushing artists, putting on a show that would work equally well as a live album as it would a silent, looping extended GIF. This is one Evening audiences won’t soon forget.
