Palace is David Byrne’s Beautiful House

Posted: October 22nd, 2008 | Filed under: Culture, Features, Music | No Comments »

While savoring David Byrne last night at the Palace, I couldn’t help but wonder what the OMFUG those punks and poseurs at CBGB thought of the Talking Heads back in the late 70s?

That scene was grunge and black leather and safety pin piercings and spit and snot and rage and three chord metal thrash. And here came these preppy artsy types from the Rhode Island School of Design playing their spare, measured, triumphantly ironic tunes for the mosh piters. I can’t imagine the questioning looks.

Byrne and his Talking Head cohorts — long since separated — survived and thrived quite nicely thank you very much. Byrne, always the ring leader, more than his brethren and sistern. He’s done art, and movie scores, introduced the music public to third world artists, soundtracks and albums, and generally spent his career engendering a cooler than cool often disengaged aesthetic.

Here’s to say it’s worn much more well than any might have thought.

Byrne’s now on a Brian Eno-fueled tour, sharing their collaborations from today and yesteryear on a rather hefty schedule. Backed by a computer/ keyboardist, bass, two percussionists, three back up singers and three dancers — all in museum white like the major domo — it’s a stunner of a show.

The dancers were the deal, a veritable coup de grace. Obviously from the Twyla Tharp school of Shruggery, they turned the evening into some sort of SoHo gallery installation.

Byrne is nothing if not a provocateur, molding art from artifice.  His craft has always been the merger of style and soul — Caucasian soul — but soul nonetheless. African rhythms reign, presented with a beguiling elegance. Lyrics taunt and tease. The verbal imagery has always seemed much ado about nothing much at all. Point. Counterpoint. Ironic to the nth degree.

“Did I forget to mention/ to mention Memphis/ Home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks.”

“And you say to yourself/ This is not my beautiful house/ This is not my beautiful wife.”

Those words make you think, more important they make you smile. Unless you’re dancing to sweat and don’t really pay attention to all of Byrne’s references to house and home.

There is a whirling dervish quality that more often than not renders comprehension of what is being sung as nothing but an afterthought. It was sure like that at the Palace, where Louisville smote, at least for the evening, any Lynard Skynard syndrome that might be a character flaw around here. (This is, after all, a town that embraced a band with the absurd name, Jefferson Tarc Bus.)

Byrne’s voice, a bold and surprisingly soaring instrument, rises above the polyrhythms, the burps, beeps and musical farkles. He actually croons on occasion, especially on some of the newer, more mature tuneage.

The concert was a blast, smoldering intellect with a beat you can dance to. And dance the way less than capacity crowd did. I haven’t seen a mindless mass like that around here since Youssou N’Dour and his Super Etoile ensemble melted the Bomhard decades ago at a Lonesome Pine Show.

The trump card of the evening, at least for the Film Babe and me, was info shared by some friends about an upcoming Van Morrison show at the Hollywood Bowl. A set of classic Van songs, followed by a second set which will be the entirety of “Astral Weeks.” FB and I needed an excuse to get out of Dodge, so, thanks to the wonders of the internet and instant ticketing, we scored some righteous seats to that show and had them in our paws before our heads hit the pillow.

All we need now is a place to stay in LaLa Land and a flight. Then again, maybe we can soar on the wings of “Houses In Motion.” Sure could’ve last night.

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