DAVIN O'DWYER reviews David Byrne at the National Concert Hall, Dublin.
Usually, when a popular songwriter performs in a venue that is more traditionally home to “high” culture, there is the expectation that they will be putting an emphasis on the earnest rather than the frivolous. When that songwriter is David Byrne, a musical chameleon with a long history of dabbling in the avant garde, we had even more reason to assume this would be a cerebral sort of show. And seemingly confirming those suspicions, Byrne would be limiting the performance to material on which he collaborated with Brian Eno, the mad professor of musical experimentation.
Byrne, however, had other ideas, and by the end of this glorious gig, the only reservation that could be expressed about this marriage of performer and venue was the severe shortage of aisles to accommodate all the dancing audience members. It’s safe to suggest that the National Concert Hall rarely sees this much spontaneous pogoing.
Byrne walked on stage in a crisp white shirt and trousers, with white shoes, white guitar and his shock of white hair, and was quickly followed by three backing singers, two percussionists, a bassist and a keyboard player, all resplendent in white. He began by giving deadpan permission to the audience to take photographs. Such is the authoritarian aversion to cameras in the crowed exhibited by many big-name performers, this seemed a brave statement of intent – you, the paying audience, are permitted to have fun.
The expansive stage, used to accommodating populous orchestras, seemed quite bare, with Byrne isolated at the front of the stage. By the second song, however, the group was joined by three energetic dancers (wearing white, need you ask), and the show began to resemble a piece of musical theatre as much as a concert. The choreography was deceptively casual – more Spike Jonze video than Broadway musical – but the routines functioned as more than mere visual amusement, instead acting as a form of animation to the songs.
It bore all the hallmarks of Talking Heads-style whimsicality, and while the quirky vocal style is less pronounced, the efficient, understated charisma that made Stop Making Sense such a classic is still in evidence. The material included tracks from Byrne's pioneering 1981 collaboration with Eno, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, and last year's charming Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, with plenty of Eno-produced Talking Heads numbers thrown in too, but the crowd responded enthusiastically to all of it.
This exuberant, irrepressible performance was initially at odds with the all-seated venue, with the rich rhythms and melodies demanding more than toe-tapping and hand-waving, and the seats made the crowd feel hemmed in, when the music was doing the exact opposite. A few brave souls stood and gyrated, though they looked uncomfortably aware of their conspicuousness, but just when you felt the Olympia or Vicar Street would have been a more suitable venue, Byrne launched into Once in a Lifetime, and the venue burst into unselfconscious life. "This ain't no disco," he sang on Life During Wartime, and he had a point, but it sure wasn't your typical NCH fare, either. Long before the rapturously received first, second and third encores, this show had gig of the year written all over it.
After this, a lot of gigs are going to seem unimaginative, conceptually lazy, and probably kind of dull. Above all, it proved that Byrne is a rare kind of genius. As he might say himself – same as it ever was.
