Here's David Byrne at his sold out run of concerts on Broadway at the end of 2019, introducing the show. He is smartly dressed in a grey suit, but wears no shoes or socks as he sits at a table in the middle of the stage and contemplates the model of a brain, then begins to sing his recent song Here, which is about that very thing. As he explains, he was reading up about the human brain and was surprised to learn there were thousands more connections in a baby's brain than an adult's. Does this mean we grow stupider as we get older? Would this explain many of the dubious decisions made by adults in both their and our name? Something to contemplate as the songs continue, and Byrne is joined onstage by his band...
If there was an elephant in the room (or on the stage) during this record of Byrne's American Utopia tour show, it was a film by Jonathan Demme: Stop Making Sense, which is often proclaimed as the greatest concert movie ever made. That's up for debate, but Byrne's fans would find this sort-of follow up a contender in itself, as not only did it present many a tune from his old band Talking Heads in an updated fashion, but it was recognisably cut from the same cloth. The director this time around was Spike Lee, who obviously worked closely with the star to bring plenty of that live energy to what could have been a little staid; fortunately, all doubts were dispelled within minutes of this starting, Byrne's off-kilter magnetism well captured by Lee's respectful cameras.
What was there to offer the non-fan, or the casual buff who only knew a hit or two? It was true that the lead and his band were highly self-possessed, but they never came across as smug: more than this, they seemed smart, and that was bolstered by Byrne's observations between the songs. Here was something to aspire to, a multiculturalism in music where appropriation was not a consideration since the elements that went into making up the sounds and the dances were entirely presented with permission. There was a sense of everyone here, and that included the diverse theatre audience, assembling to prove something, that we could unite to make things better, be that for a concert, a country or a world, and the positivity may have been tempered with wariness or bemusement, but it was definitely a factor that anybody watching would be invited to contemplate.
There was a danger of losing the audience in twenty-first century culture when they feel as if they are being lectured to, and it was sad that some would be turned off by Byrne's gentle-mannered attacks on nationalism, racism and small-mindedness, but those were never going to be convinced by his pleas for making things better. Lee's politics were usually more upfront in his films, but with this collaboration he seemed to have toned it down without betraying them: the most typically socially engaged aspect would be the cover of a Janelle Monae song about the Black Lives Matter movement. Seeing a sixty-eight-year-old white guy singing about its victims was never going to have the force of her performance, but seeing Byrne and his mix of bandmates putting it across, to indicate it was everyone's concern if you were in any way engaged with the human race, was a close second. Sure, there were those hits - Slippery People, Once in a Lifetime and Road to Nowhere among them - but if this was never going to topple Demme's film as the ultimate in its form, it was a damn good try, and, yes, it was a positive experience in a pleasingly eccentric way; a celebration.
[David Byrne's American Utopia is available on digital download from 14th Dec and on DVD from 11th Jan.]
Talented, prolific American director who has courted more controversy than most with his out-spoken views and influenced an entire generation of black film-makers. Lee made his impressive debut with the acerbic sex comedy She's Gotta Have It in 1986, while many consider his study of New York race relations Do the Right Thing to be one of the best films of the 80s.
Lee's films tend to mix edgy comedy and biting social drama, and range from the superb (Malcolm X, Clockers, Summer of Sam) to the less impressive (Mo Better Blues, Girl 6), but are always blessed with passion and intelligence. Lee has acted in many of his films and has also directed a wide range of music videos, commercials and documentaries. Inside Man saw a largely successful try at the thriller genre, Oldboy was a misguided remake, but he welcomed some of his best reactions of his career to true crime story BlacKkKlansman.
