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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Andrew Stafford

David Byrne review – hope, humanity and dancing in a superbly paced and choreographed show

David Byrne and his group performing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre
‘A ticket to watch the world burn’: David Byrne and his group performing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. Photograph: Ashlee Sekulich/Frontier Touring

Dressed from head to foot in iridescent orange, David Byrne and his 12-piece backing band look as if they’re about to burst into flames. On a vast, empty stage – uncluttered by amplifiers, microphones or any of the usual things that anchor a live performance – the former Talking Heads frontman is still full of twitchy energy.

Thankfully, there’s no spontaneous combustion. The template for tonight’s spectacle remains the legendary Stop Making Sense tour of 1984 – via American Utopia – where the show is built in increments. It starts slowly with Heaven, from Talking Heads’ 1979 album Fear of Music, a song that has lost none of its existential power.

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