David Byrne’s Tour Diary: Louisville, KY 10.20.2008

apparently david and band spent the day wandering around louisville and my neighborhood (or very close too it anyway), his tour diary offers a pretty cool look into his visit to town.

10.20.2008: Louisville

We’re staying at 21c, a combo museum and hotel here in downtown Louisville. The ground and lower floors are given over to curated shows of contemporary art, much of it from the collection of the owner, Steve Wilson and his wife.

I was given Wilson’s contact by Stefan Sagmeister, who designed the package for the various physical manifestations of my current album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, as well as many of my past CDs. My palatial room (for which I was generously comped) features a whole wall of photos of Thai Ladyboys (sex changes), a series of photos of a woman undressing in front of a variety of men, and a muscular Chinese man in his underpants holding up the top of the picture frame. I guess some of these pieces were deemed not quite appropriate for the lobby.

(That’s not Kurt, by the way)

Well, I wasn’t going to make much use of this luxurious apartment all by myself, so I invited all the band and crew to stop by for mint juleps after they had their dinners. Jenni volunteered Steven to bartend, and with the huge patio there was plenty of room for all of us plus local musician/actor Will Oldham and some of his pals. It’s not really his kind of scene, I imagine, this hotel, but it was nice to meet.

During the day a few of us biked to the massive Cave Hill cemetery, which is so big it has a lake with a fountain, ducks and swans. Colonel Sanders is buried there, but we missed his gravesite. We moved on, through a neighborhood of large houses, to nearby Cherokee Park, “built” by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed Central Park and quite a few other urban parks, and we stopped for some homemade applesauce at a picnic table.

Apparently, Elizabeth found happiness at our picnic table.

Others biked in the opposite direction and came across blocks of burnt out buildings.

heaven…heaven is a place…where david byrne plays for 2+ hours” or, david byrne @ the palace theatre/louisville, ky (10.21.2008)

click on the photo to see more pictures

oh. my. lord.

i had predicted earlier that hands down, tom waits @ the fox would be, with out a doubt, the best show i saw this year. i now retract that.

i just saw david byrne turn in a two + hour abso-fucking-lutely amazing show of both musical and visual beauty. honestly, immediately afterwards, i didn’t have words to describe it, it was still soaking into my mind, my body and my soul. i wouldn’t say it was “better” than tom, but it was every damn bit as good…and that’s saying a lot.

wow!

what a truly amazing incredible night of music. i have been a long time talking heads fans and love david byrne’s solo work, this was my first time seeing him live, i can only hope it is not the last.

below is a review from the louisville courier-journal…

Byrne burns down the Palace
Jeffrey Lee Puckett, The Courier-Journal (Louisville KY), 21 October 2008 [Link]

To look at him, you would never think that David Byrne is a stone-cold rhythm machine, what with his gray hair and eccentric, professorial demeanor. When he took the stage last night at the Louisville Palace, dressed entirely in white and giving a halting thesis about the show we were about to see, Byrne seemed almost timid.

That changed with the first downstroke of “Strange Overtones” and rarely faltered through the raging conclusion of “Burning Down the House.” Byrne was a James Brown carved out of ivory and animated by nervous tics, leading a relentless band through a series of relentless songs, and he earned a sustained, almost ecstatic ovation.

The show was all about motion, in the music and on the stage.

Most songs were built on the polyrhythms of Afropop, expanding the sound Byrne created with Talking Heads and creating huge grooves that seemed effortless, almost weightless. Three dancers played a major role, another common aspect of live African music, and were occasionally joined by Byrne and three back-up singers.

It was almost an interactive live art installation as the dancers roamed the stage with choreography that carefully mimicked chaos, crossing in front of Byrne, catching him in a trust fall and once breaking the fourth wall to teach the singers how to dance.

Byrne’s dancing was completely charming; he sometimes looked as if he were being controlled by a puppeteer with palsy, but would suddenly bust a supremely graceful move.

The show was based on past and present collaborations between Byrne and musician/producer Brian Eno, with several songs from the new album, “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.” They were hit and miss, ranging from the very strong (“One Fine Day,” “Strange Overtones”) to the mediocre (“Life is Long,” “The River”).

Not surprisingly, it was the Talking Heads songs that went over best, and with good reason. “Houses In Motion,” “Life During Wartime,” “Once In A Lifetime” and “Burning Down the House” were all less sterile than the original versions, with an aggressive, even ferocious, edge. “Burning Down the House” was particularly thrilling and had the crowd wired.

“Consider it burnt,” a friend said, which is as accurate and succint a review as you’ll find.

Strange Overtones
I Zimbra
One Fine Day
Help Me Somebody
Houses in Motion
My Big Nurse
My Big Hands
Heaven
Never Thought
The River
Crosseyed & Painless
Life is Long
Once in Lifetime
Life During Wartime
I Feel My Stuff
Encore 1:
Take Me to the River
The Great Curve
Air
Encore 2:
Burning Down the House
Encore 3:
Everything that Happens
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