![]() ![]() While there are vocal creaks that show his age here and there, Byrne’s voice soars on the longer notes which are given a boost thanks to the impressive acoustics. The clockwork precision of the choreography most impresses in the group march that compliments the rhythmic chant of “I Zimbra” or the minimal maneuvers that suit the mid-tempo classic “This Must Be the Place”. In the greyish, washed-out business attire, the cheery contortions come off like minor acts of rebellion. Their apparently drab uniformity only heightens the ebullience of the troupe’s movements. The exquisitely costumed performers are all dressed like extras in a surrealist comedy by Jacques Tati. The show flirts with the postmodern while Byrne ensures the wider audience won’t be alienated by such notions. That all may sound rather pseudo-intellectual but the self-effacing maestro at the centre keeps us engaged. American Utopia is about what makes us tick, our worst impulses and learning to not overthink all that too much and enjoy the ride. “Looking at people, that’s the best,” he says winkingly at one point. On the record, this was a so-so denouement but here it is an effective thesis statement for the show. Our singer lists off the functions and limitations of the cerebrum’s ability to construct our reality and emotional connections. In a version superior to the studio effort, Byrne sings album closer “Here” while holding a human brain, the very organ the track centres around. Things start off, very literally, in cerebral fashion. Not to mention the botched response to a global pandemic which even our cynical composer would have struggled to predict when he recorded this last year. ![]() The idea of an ‘American Utopia’ also seems palpably ludicrous given the current upheavals and struggles for racial justice. “Most of us are immigrants and we couldn’t do it without them,” Byrne tells an enraptured audience in one of his numerous, mini monologues throughout. ‘American’ in that the stage is a melting pot of nationality, gender and race, with half of the performers hailing from a nation other than the US. ![]() That title, taken from the album of the same name, is unsurprisingly a political statement in and of itself. With an in-form Spike Lee at the helm, this is an exhilarating, supremely shot live performance peppered with a few reality checks for the viewer. The former Talking Heads frontman has given us a Broadway gig that is undoubtedly a bunch of fun but one which also takes stock of the dispiriting aspects of the American experience. David Byrne’s American Utopia is that film and it isn’t that film. Featuring some of the best music of the 1980s and late 70s, it will always be a reliable, uplifting escape from the outside world. In 2020 the syncopated rhythms remain just as infectious, the ‘big suit’ just as iconic and the jovial gyrating just as hypnotising. Stop Making Sense, made in support of the final great record of the run Speaking in Tongues, proved a soothing, mood-improving tonic for the fed-up who felt nothing trickling down from the prevailing ‘Reaganomic’ system.ĭecades on and Stop Making Sense still wears its reputation as ‘the greatest concert put to film’ well. While some relationships were beginning to fracture, the new-wave four-piece were riding high on an imperious streak of records that began with the anxious, post-punk stylings of debut Talking Heads: 77. Talking Heads, perhaps then the most critically lauded band in the US, released the concert film Stop Making Sense in 1984. ![]()
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