David Byrne - not my own photo - click to see a nice set at Flickr by user pebblesfromheaven

Alison and I saw David Byrne’s concert at the Sage (Newcastle) last night (Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour tour).

It was absolutely amazing – brilliant, funny, heartwarming, touching…. and funky… great musicians, 3 dancers, that amazing voice, that back-catalog of songs in collaboration with Eno (Talking Heads & Solo) mixed with the new (Everything That Happens Will Happen Today) album.

It’s hard to pick a highlight – there were so many…:

• The long funky grooves of the Remain In Light era
• The simple beauty of “Heaven” (”is a place… a place where nothing… nothing ever happens”)
• The art-pop classic “Once in a lifetime” – one of Byrne’s/TH’s best known – still fresh and intriguing (”…and you may ask yourself.. how did I get here… where does that highway go to”)
• The dancers (simultaneously all NY artsy pretentious and yet funny/quirky) – added to the spectacle and showed DB’s love for presenting a “show” whilst avoiding “rock clichés”.  Praise to him to take 3 dancers on a world tour… I’m sure it would be more profitable to tour without dancers.. but he chose to bring them along.
• The country gospel tinged new stuff… and the amazing “Take me to the River”…
• DB “being the sampler” and vocalising the sampled sermon from “Help Me Somebody”…
  • “There`s no escape from Him. He`s so high you can`t get over Him. He`s so low you can`t get under Him. He`s so wide you can`t get around Him. If you make your bed in Heaven He`s there. If you make your bed in Hell He`s there. He`s everywhere.”
• All those great lyrics:
  • this aint no party.. this aint no disco….
  • I’M AN OR-DI-NARY GUY!
  • I’m changing my shape-I feel like an accident
  • Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…

Wonderful evening – a priviledge to be there.

UPDATE: These 2 reviews (of other concerts on the tour) are fair and good:

• The Times
• The Guardian