My husband and I love many kinds of music, but we don’t listen to the same type…it’s hard, especially on long drives. He seriously upset me once, when he just turned off my favorite song (Save a Prayer by Duran Duran, of course) without asking me! He likes “old men” music like Van Morrison, and I’m a 1980’s girl, so it’s almost impossible to go to a live concert together. Luckily, he doesn’t mind me going out with my friends. My dear friend Maxine has been my performing arts hang out friend, and we’ve seen Duran Duran, Madonna and The B-52’s together, and I’ve also seen The Go-Go’s, Daryl Hall & John Oates and The Cheap Trick with other cool mom friends and have had great times since I’ve lived in the Hamptons!
There are actually some songs that my husband and I can listen together, like John Lennon’s, The Rolling Stones, and Hall & Oates. It’s amazing the Stones are still active with the original members! I want to see them before they’re gone, but my husband says when they play live, it’s not “tight” and not so great anymore. Ha. So I was very happy he came to see David Byrne’s with me, Maxine, and her genius musician husband Tom Doncourt last Monday! He says he liked The Talking Heads, when I was a baby!
The King Theater was supposed to be 18 minutes away from the famous River Cafe by the Brooklyn Bridge, so we were meeting our friends there at 5:30p.m. Brooklyn is about a 3 hour drive from the Hamptons. As always, the traffic was pretty bad but the cool HOV lane was like a breeze. We thought we’ll be 30 minutes early, but we hadn’t realized my smart Lexus put us on the road to the Williamsburg bridge that is going to the city… There were no exits until our destination and took us 40 minutes to drive 7 miles! We were 10 minutes late. Anyways, we were having a great time, but nobody was watching the time. We left the restaurant 10 minutes before show time, and then it took us 30 minutes to drive to the theater. We were relieved when we saw that many people were still getting in, and it didn’t start until 9 p.m!
My coolest friend and another David Byrne fan, Dianne B (she has been & seen everything in the CBGB, Studio 54 era!!) missed the live traveling Italy with her love of her life Lys but her friend Eileen went. The next morning, Dianne wanted to know all about it, and Eileen wrote such a great review like a magazine.
“I have to say David put on a ‘Performance Piece’ like he’s never done before. It opened up with him under a harsh direct light, sitting at a simple wooden desk, holding a brain, looking like Bob Wilson doing Hamlet. The staging was minimalist-perfection. A chain curtain on all three back walls, floor to ceiling – a silver version of the old Four Seasons restaurant. His full band played on pared down instruments that where on shoulder straps, marching band style. Everyone wore the same styles suit in a silver-gray gabardine, ala Jil Sanders 1995. He opened with two from the new album then moved to old hits. This was smart, he wove new and old songs throughout the night, as he had rabid Talking Heads fans in the audience. By song two the orchestra, where I sat, 10th row center, stood up and did not sit until they all were home. He closed with two songs from Imelda – and the final song was Janelle Monae song from the Women’s March on Washington that he said she allowed him to upgrade for today’s politics. He has had in every lobby of every show a group called ‘sign up’ (I think) that does voting registration immediately. He scolded the audience for the voting in local elections at 20% – and he’s right – Americans don’t vote then complain. It was one of the best music shows/performance piece I’ve ever seen.”
Not much to add from me, except for David Byrne can dance like a 30-year-old man! He is so cool and smart. When they answered to the second encores, they shouted all the men’s names who got shot and killed by the police, my smart husband taught me later. I was never interested in politics but like many others have, I started reading the news before the election in 2016. I even became an American Citizen so I was able to vote. Maxine, her daughter and I were at the first Women’s March in D.C, but we were too far away to hear Janelle Monae’s. I hope many audiences who hadn’t registered did register there that night. Thank you David Byrne, you are my hero!
Everybody’s coming to my house
Wow what a lucky lady you are to have seen David Byrne. I like his music also. I saw Talkomg Heads many times when I lived in San Francisco years ago
I still listen to some songs you mentioned like Burning Down Thr House
I think you are luckier than I am! Talking Heads was probably too sophisticated for me back then, and I didn’t really listen to them. I love watching the film Stop Making Sense on youtube!