Monday, May 24, 2004

David Byrne & Tosca Strings: 'My Backwards Life' tour -- excellent concert!

Last night we saw David Bryne at the NH Capitol Center for the Arts and he put on an excellent show!

The show started with an Argentinian singer and keyboardist who did a 45 minute set. She sung in Spanish and had a bit of a Susan Vega sound going on. It was okay, but clear that the audience wasn't really into it.





After the intermission, Bryne and the Tosca Strings (4 violins, 2 Cellos, drums, guitarist and keyboard/drums) came on and started with one of his newer songs. The show got going with the next I Zimbra the crowd went wild. There were some strange transitions (bunch of folks dancing and then into a version of La Traviata) but the mix of classic Talking Heads songs (Mr Jones (with long jam session), Heaven, Life During Wartime, Psycho Killer [with strings!], etc), some songs written for movies, Rei Momo, Cuban/Latin style, Catherine Wheel, etc.

On a related note, there is a recording of a full Tom Tom Club concert in the Live Music Archive section of archive.org.

At lunchtime I going to pickup another copy of the Stop Making Sense DVD (first one was scratched to death, the VHS long lost among the Barney/Power Ranger tapes) and start to inculcate the music of the Talking /David Bryne/Tom Tom Club, etc on all the kids. Logan and Spencer will dig Byrne's dancing and Griffin already thinks Life During Wartime is 'cool'.