David Byrne on how American Utopia kept his flame alight at 68
The former Talking Heads frontman has spent the last few years performing the most adventurous and challenging show of his life, including a five-month run on Broadway.
If a popular musician is lucky or healthy enough still to be performing beyond the age of 60, it is almost inevitable that what they’re doing on stage is reprising their greatest hits in a predictable fashion for their nostalgic fans, and hopefully also enjoying comforts such as flying near the pointy end of the plane and sleeping in much nicer hotel rooms than their younger selves while on tour.
One of the most visible exceptions to this rule is David Byrne, the former frontman of US art rock band Talking Heads who in recent years brushed aside the narrow cultural expectations placed on performers his age. Instead, he pursued perhaps the most challenging, surprising and creatively fulfilling large-scale tour of the decade in American Utopia, which he brought to Australia for four arena concerts in late 2018.
On a blank stage surrounded by a chain curtain on three sides, Byrne and up to 11 instrumentalists, singers and dancers were in constant motion throughout a 100-minute, 21-song set list heavy on Talking Heads fan favourites such as Once in a Lifetime, This Must Be the Place and Born Under Punches, as well as tracks from Byrne’s career as a solo artist, including five from his recent release, 2018 album American Utopia.
In a Zoom interview with Review early this month from his home in New York City, the white-haired singer-songwriter can’t disguise the twinkle in his eye when asked whether he’s pleased to be doing some of the most vital work of his life when many of his peers are slowing down or have already stopped.
“Being immodest, yes, it does make me very happy,” says Byrne, 68.
“It makes me realise, well, this is possible. That one doesn’t have to repeat yourself and you don’t lose creativity and inspiration as you get older. If you can keep that flame alive, not every year is something incredible going to happen — but as long as you keep the flame burning, sometimes something incredible might happen.”
Byrne’s abandonment of convention with American Utopia was breathtaking from conception to execution, as anybody who witnessed the show in person would likely attest.
After a world tour, Byrne and his colleagues occupied the 961-seat Hudson Theatre on Broadway for a five-month season from October last year, performing six nights a week for a total of 121 shows for about 107,000 ticketholders.
A concert film recorded towards the end of that residency soon will screen in Australian cinemas for a limited run.
Directed by filmmaker Spike Lee — best known for his work behind the camera on projects such as Malcolm X, BlacKkKlansman and the 2020 Netflix release Da 5 Bloods — this is no ordinary concert film, just as American Utopia was no ordinary concert.
Asked why he saw Lee as an ideal candidate as director, Byrne replies, “Obviously I knew that he had strong feelings about politics and social issues, and things like that. We’re dealing with a lot of these subjects [in the show], so that’s right in his wheelhouse, as they say.
“He’s also filmed Broadway shows and live events before, which is a very, very different thing than filming a fiction film, where you’ve got actors in a room, and they can do the scene over and over again, and you can control the lighting perfectly.
“The live thing is really about capturing things and trying to anticipate what’s going to happen.
“So I thought he was going to understand all that — and he did.” Filming across two Saturday shows in the Hudson Theatre, Lee and his colleagues were tasked with recording the high-energy performance from a range of camera angles, including some artfully deployed overhead shots that illustrate the true depth of the space where the action takes place.
“In the second show, the audience was livewire,” Byrne says, beaming at the memory.
“The audience could see all these cameras, and so they thought, ‘We’re at a very special show tonight — this is the one that’s going to be in the movie.’ The audience was incredible, and we fed off that energy.”
By the time the cameras were in place, American Utopia had become a thoroughly well-oiled machine without losing the sense of spontaneity and vitality that can sometimes slip away through sheer repetition and fatigue on the part of the performers.
“It’s hard to explain, I guess, if you haven’t experienced it,” says Byrne. “Somehow when it works — when the audience reacts and their reaction is sincere — your relationship with them is there, of that moment. You’re relating to them now.
“You’ve been to shows where the patter sounds like, ‘Oh, this person has said this a million times, and they’re completely bored by it’,” he says. “If you can keep it alive [so] that what you’re saying to them — and their reaction to you — is not just a rote recording, but you’re actually communicating something and listening to how they respond to it? That never gets boring. It’s kind of amazing.”
Perhaps the greatest trick that Byrne and his extraordinary band managed to pull off with this singular show was the art of making something incredibly difficult still look straightforward, if not quite effortless, as the grey suits worn by all on stage slowly became visibly soaked through with sweat after all that movement and exertion.
Early in the planning stage, Byrne realised that the ideal of having it look simple was going to be one of the biggest challenges yet critically important to the look and feel of the whole show. “Although what the audience sees is emptiness on the stage and it looks very simple — the lighting does not look all that flashy — it’s very, very complicated what goes on backstage,” he says.
As the initial Broadway run came to a close in February, the production was unaffected by the COVID-19 venue closures that have devastated the performing arts industry, although its planned return in September was pushed back until the same month next year.
Until then, one of Byrne’s biggest puzzles as a performer and a storyteller is how to address the pandemic-sized elephant in the room, particularly as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to ravage the US.
“I’m actually more concerned with: what kind of changes do we make in the show to acknowledge what’s happened in the more than a year in between [shows]?” he says. “How do we deal with that?”
Those answers are yet unknown and centred on a wicked problem with even more moving parts than a show such as this. In hindsight, Lee’s film doesn’t just capture one of the most innovative and invigorating rock concerts staged but also a carefree time in a crowded theatre before any of us had to grapple with such questions.
David Byrne’s American Utopia is screening in limited release in cinemas nationally from November 26.
More Coverage
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout