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Monday, May 21st brought David Byrne to Detroit’s overheated St. Andrew’s Hall. The former Talking Heads frontman delivered a great performance highlighting his solo career in a 90 minute, 17 song set. The capacity crowd was an interesting mix of jazz snobs in black turtle necks, 80’s refugees complete with button-clad denim jackets and mullets, and, thanks to Phish, hippie kids hoping to hear "Crosseyed And Painless." Emerging dressed as a gas station attendant with a Valvoline patch over his heart, I wonder if Byrne was being his usual quirky self or slyly advertising motor oil!
Whether or not Byrne was promoting motor oil can be debated but what is certain is that his agenda definitely was structured around promoting his latest release Look Into The Eyeball. To that end Byrne and his three piece band opened the show with "The Revolution," a beautiful, well-received lullaby of a song. The next few songs were a wonderful retrospective look at Byrne’s career.
Byrne in wonderful voice all night, satisfied audience catcalls by next playing the Talking Heads' "Nothing But Flowers." Following this was one of the highlights of the evening, "God’s Child," a salsafied jam which was originally a duet with the late Latin
superstar Celena featured in the movie Blue In The Face. A few songs later Byrne busted out two classic Talking Heads tunes.
He introduced "And She Was" by recalling his high school days when he knew a girl who would drop acid and lay in a field outside of the Yoo-Hoo chocolate factory and listen to the highway.
Flowing straight out of that was "Once In A Lifetime" with Byrne making us feel as though it was the “same as it ever was.” Byrne’s brilliantly planned setlist had the audience eating out of his
hand, setting them up for a barrage of new songs.
With the crowd going wild Byrne brought out six members of the Detroit Symphony to play strings for the last nine songs of the evening, six of which were from Eyeball. At this point
Byrne, sweating profusely, asked that the light show be scaled back so he wouldn’t pass out. Of these previously mentioned six selections the highlight was the high energy "Descondido Soy" with Byrne belting out lyrics in Spanish while dancing around the stage.
In an effort not to give away the entire setlist I leave you with this cryptic message, enjoy the music from Houston. If you go, and I implore everyone to see this amazing artist and also highly recommend his new album, you will understand what I am saying.
Peace,
Mir Ali
JamBase Midwest Correspondent
Go See Live Music!
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