I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to see David Byrne tonight. My grandmother died this morning, half a world away. It turned into a day of high emotion spent remembering a woman who loved me and my siblings selflessly and unreservedly. Los Angeles seemed to know how I was feeling: the grey skies wept, turning the streets into rivers. At first I didn’t feel much like leaving the house, but when the evening came I was determined to set sail for Hollywood Boulevard. I am, after all, a professional, and perhaps someone “burning down the house” would take my mind off things.
Byrne turned out to be just what was needed: a life-affirming salve delivered in the form of an awe-inspiring spectacle. The 73-year-old has been experimenting with the art of stagecraft since Talking Heads first took the stage at CBGB, dressed like accountants, in 1975. Fifty years on, he’s promoting his new playful, occasionally goofy, solo record Who Is the Sky? It manages somehow to live up to the high bar set by Talking Heads’ groundbreaking Stop Making Sense tour in 1983 (immortalised in the concert film by Jonathan Demme) and his own acclaimed American Utopia run in 2018 (given similar treatment by Spike Lee). Byrne is a professional. The only unknown variable is the audience. About five minutes before the show starts, he makes an announcement to those in attendance that the venue owners have confirmed… it will be OK to dance.
The production for the Who is the Sky? tour in many ways picks up where American Utopia left off. Byrne is once again joined by a large backing group comprising five dancers and seven musicians, all of whom move freely around the stage in a routine by choreographer Steven Hoggett.
Some things, however, have been refined. The grey American Utopia uniforms have been replaced by rich blue suits designed by Veronica Leoni for Calvin Klein. There are vast, high-definition projections capable of transforming the stage in an instant. On opener “Heaven”, for example, Byrne and his band appear to be standing on the surface of the moon, with the Earth rising behind them. “There she is,” says Byrne, pointing to the blue planet. “Our heaven. The only one we have.”
Kevin EG Perry: Collected Works 