David Byrne Plans Ambitious Live Shows

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David Byrne (Photo from his website)

The former mastermind behind Talking Heads, David Byrne, is planning a series of show for 2018, beginning with a handful of U.S. dates in the spring then heading to South America and Europe. (On Jan. 2, it was revealed that he would be appearing at Coachella.)

Rather than paraphrasing, we’ll let Byrne own social media post explain what he’s up to…

“Some months ago I went to Clair Bothers in Manheim, PA, to test out tech for some new live shows. I had an idea that everyone in the band might be mobile… so there would be no risers, drum platform or any of that stuff. I’d experienced a taste of this on the tour I did with St. Vincent, where all the brass players were mobile.

With everyone mobile, I realized the stage could be completely clear. If we could have the monitors in our ears, the amps off-stage and the lights up high, then we had the possibility of a completely empty space.

The problem was that there are always a lot of people and gear around the periphery of a music show—amps, monitor mixers, stage hands looking bored, road cases, etc., which would be completely distracting—how to hide that stuff? A curtain or drape obviously, but as I might be doing outdoor venues then there arose the issue of wind and drapes or curtains. A relatively light wind can play havoc with cloth, and if you try and anchor it, you end up having made yourself a very large sail—big enough to pull down the entire rig.

In Vegas and some other places, lightweight chains have been used instead of curtains… so we looked at a sample. It seemed promising, so we tested it at scale, to see if it took light (it seemed possible that the light might go right through) and to make sure it didn’t interfere with the wireless transmissions—or the whole mobile idea would be impossible.

It worked. It takes color beautifully.

Not only does it take color, one can cast shadows on the chain.

The band and I will be testing all of this in front of a live audience during a small number of shows in the beginning of March. We’ll be doing some new songs… and many others that will, I assume, be familiar. I’m excited. This is the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense, so fingers crossed.

-David Byrne”

David Byrne 2018 Dates (Tickets for some of the dates are available on Ticketmaster and StubHub)

Mar 03 – Count Basie Theatre – Red Bank, NJ
Mar 04 – F.M. Kirby Center – Wilkes-Barre, PA
Mar 06 – Center for the Arts – University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
Mar 07 – Hershey Theatre – Hershey, PA
Mar 09 – Palace Theater – Waterbury, CT
Mar 10 – Ulster Performing Arts Center – Kingston, NY
Mar 16 – Lollapalooza – Santiago, Chile
Mar 18 – Lollapalooza – Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mar 23 – Lollapalooza – Sao Paulo, Brazil
Apr 07 – Corona Capital 2018 – Zapopan, Mexico
Apr 14 – Coachella – Indio, CA
Apr 21 – Coachella – Indio, CA
Jun 25 – INmusic Festival, Jarun Zagreb – Zagreb, Croatia
Jul 05 – Open’er Festival – Gdynia, Poland
Jul 06 – Roskilde Festival – Roskilde, Denmark

Watch David Byrne and St. Vincent in concert