2018 music highlights - David Byrne's 'American Utopia' tour
In the very first week of January, a note went round announcing a new album from David Byrne. A week later, a listing for a small UK tour. The lead single... was ok. Few details were given about the tour.
The sense was that this would be the standard campaign for an aging indie rocker. He'd probably turn up to his shows with four polished session musicians, do the hits, and be off into the distance with a hundred quid from each punter. Easy money.
I had tickets booked for the middle of June, the first show of the UK leg of the tour. By that point breathless rumours had made their way across the Atlantic of something unusual, certainly not run of the mill. I diligently avoided as much as I could but had seen the odd photo here and there. Looked like a fairly substantial group of identically-dressed musicians with something... not quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it. I was dubious about the rumours but hey! This is David Byrne! He'll do Psycho Killer and we could all pretend that it's still 1986. It'd be good. A bit like seeing ELO at Wembley. You know, meat and potatoes.
Boy, was that ever not the case.
In the medium-sized theatre the curtain opened to a dark stage. A spotlight fell to a man sat at a table, looking at a model of a brain. It's David, alone. Music plays, and he sings along to Here, the final track on the new album. On the three sides of the stage a beaded curtain starts to rise, and at its peak two dancers step through. David picks up the brain and shows it to the audience. Chair and table are removed by the dancers as part of their routine. The song drifts to an end. Everyone's a little starstruck, baffled that this seems to be a three person dance to a backing track but appreciative that David's put some thought into this.
We hear the opening of another song, something tricky to initially place but definitely not from the new album. Something clicks - oh! It's Lazy, the dance track David provided guest vocals for back in 2002. It's a dance song...
...and the rest of the ensemble begins to appear through the curtains...
...and I twigged. Everyone's playing live. Everyone's moving around the stage. Everyone's dancing! The whole song is choreographed just like the first, but now there's a dozen people on stage all playing in sync and all moving around! The intimate beauty of the first song is long gone, replaced by this joyous, raucous, oddly precise dance party.
Everyone's amazed. People are already standing and dancing, manic with applause as the song closes.
Then comes Talking Heads' favourite but far from big single I Zimbra. Then Slippery People. Then one of the best tracks from his collaboration with St Vincent a few years ago. Certainly not just the hits; a near-perfect mix of classics, new tracks, and barnstorming oddities (including a personal favourite, Toe Jam - a track recorded as part of a Fatboy Slim spin-off project).
And for each song, there's a new routine and new staging. Bullet is performed as a slow lap around a standard lamp, Slippery People as a march of dancers versus musicians, I Dance Like This as a grotesque parody of dad-dancing, Burning Down The House a giant swirling wheel-like stomp. Everything feels slick and effortless, yet it's so obvious that this whole thing is a lot of work. Like, a lot of work.
It's an incredible setlist that ends with a Janelle Monae cover, and incredible dance show, and an amazing technical feat of a mass of people all playing live without leads or amps. That would probably be enough.
But the best thing by far is that everyone was overwhelmingly happy. David, as you'd expect from having a paying audience, frequently beamed and thanked between songs. The crowd getting some of the hits along with some brilliant back catalogue choices (The Great Curve! Blind!) couldn't help but be bowled over. And the musicians themselves were grinning from ear to ear throughout, obviously aware that they were part of something very special and loving each and every second of it.
After two hours I left elated, filled with such love and positivity that I've never known after a gig. It was a hell of a show, easily amongst my favourites of all time.
I went straight home and booked tickets for the next run of shows that very evening. In Cardiff four months later, it was just as good even though by that point word had got around and he was filling an arena.
2018's felt like a drag of a year filled with division and suspicion. David's tour was the exact opposite. Inclusive, loving, passionate, articulate, happy. I'm hoping that I'll get to see it again.
And he never did get round to playing Psycho Killer.