David Byrne Kept Sacramento On Their Feet
David Byrne is back with a new album; American Utopia, and a new tour. The crowds have been excited and appreciative throughout the U.S. and Latin America since it has been a while since Mr. Byrne has been on the road.
The American Utopia Tour played in front of a capacity crowd at the Sacramento Community Center Theater. The Crowd was on its feet from the moment David took the stage and never stopped dancing.
The tour began back in March on the east coast and moved down to Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and Mexico before coming back to the U.S. where it will continue June and then will head to Europe.
Although most of us appreciate his new music, many Talking Heads fans are always waiting for those songs, and prior to the tour, David explained to Rock Cellar Magazine:
Quite a few months ago I went to Lititz and Manheim, P.A. to test out some tech for my upcoming music tour. The show concept is simple. Like the concept behind the show that was filmed for Stop Making Sense, the idea is super obvious and easy to describe. In that show, it was “bit by bit show what goes into making a show, and then activate it”. In this one, it is “allow everyone to be mobile on an empty stage” (and imagine what that allows). I asked if every musician—drums, keyboards, singers, everyone—could now be mobile. Guitars and singers no problem, we can have them be wireless with their amps and all that off-stage, but keyboards and drums? How does one do that?…
Needles to say, the show had enough music to please everyone, including those hardcore Talking Head fans as he played several Talking Head songs like: “I Zimbra”, “Slippery People”, “This Must Be The Place”, “Toe Jam”, “Blind” and some of the biggest hits like “Once In A Life Time” and “Burning Down The House.”
As explained by David above, the staging was simple but very effective, the whole band was always mobile, there was not drum set, but instead, there was a lot of mobile percussion with as many as 6 drummers at a time depending on the song, there were elaborate dance sequences and an amazing lighting effects that transformed the bare looking stage into all types of imaginative forms.