David Byrne National Concert Hall

lordgoat

This was one of the best gigs i've ever been to.

Anyone else there?`

MikeHoncho

Yeah was a brilliant show alright. 3 encores:D

Setun

Best gig evar.

that is all.

delbertgrady

Superb stuff. 110% from band and dancers, and Byrne brilliant as ever.

Strange Overtones
I Zimbra
One Fine Day
Help Me Somebody
Houses in Motion
My Big Nurse
My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks)
Heaven
The River
Life is Long
Crosseyed and Painless
Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
Once in a Lifetime
Life During Wartime
I Feel My Stuff
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Take Me to the River
The Great Curve
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Air
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Burning Down the House
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Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

yknaa

Fantastic gig oke. I think anyone who saw him at Feile 90, Ambassador or the Olympia knew we were in for a treat. Amazing energy coming from the stage at times. Not bad for a 56 year old.

Thanks for the set list!

Miguel_Sanchez

I hate you all. :mad:

Cappo

Great concert – he is a seriously cool performer! Had 3 talented dancers on stage and 3 fantastic backing singers, the shows choreography was excellent and the whole gig rocked. New album is pretty good too. :cool:

Richersounds.ie: John

Sorry guys was I at a different gig last night -? get it right!

It was completely Awesome, wild, amazing def in the top 5 gigs ever!

Glad I got that off my chest!

What an amazing night - and I hate work - otherwise I would have been in the waterfront tonight seeing him again (and I'm not a Byrne anorak - it was just superb!)

ATB,

John Mc

lightening

Great gig, lots of Talking heads fans there!!

Ian C

I had tickets but had to pull out at the last minute. Gutted. :(:(

lordgoat

Glad we're all in agreement then. Trying to try and catch him again in June... which will be sweet if it comes off!

yknaa

From today's Irish Times
DAVIN O'DWYER reviews David Byrne at the National Concert Hall, Dublin.


Byrne, however, had other ideas, and by the end of this glorious gig, the only reservation that could be expressed about this marriage of performer and venue was the severe shortage of aisles to accommodate all the dancing audience members. It’s safe to suggest that the National Concert Hall rarely sees this much spontaneous pogoing.

Byrne walked on stage in a crisp white shirt and trousers, with white shoes, white guitar and his shock of white hair, and was quickly followed by three backing singers, two percussionists, a bassist and a keyboard player, all resplendent in white. He began by giving deadpan permission to the audience to take photographs. Such is the authoritarian aversion to cameras in the crowed exhibited by many big-name performers, this seemed a brave statement of intent – you, the paying audience, are permitted to have fun.

The expansive stage, used to accommodating populous orchestras, seemed quite bare, with Byrne isolated at the front of the stage. By the second song, however, the group was joined by three energetic dancers (wearing white, need you ask), and the show began to resemble a piece of musical theatre as much as a concert. The choreography was deceptively casual – more Spike Jonze video than Broadway musical – but the routines functioned as more than mere visual amusement, instead acting as a form of animation to the songs.

It bore all the hallmarks of Talking Heads-style whimsicality, and while the quirky vocal style is less pronounced, the efficient, understated charisma that made Stop Making Sense such a classic is still in evidence. The material included tracks from Byrne’s pioneering 1981 collaboration with Eno, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts , and last year’s charming Everything That Happens Will Happen Today , with plenty of Eno-produced Talking Heads numbers thrown in too, but the crowd responded enthusiastically to all of it.

This exuberant, irrepressible performance was initially at odds with the all-seated venue, with the rich rhythms and melodies demanding more than toe-tapping and hand-waving, and the seats made the crowd feel hemmed in, when the music was doing the exact opposite. A few brave souls stood and gyrated, though they looked uncomfortably aware of their conspicuousness, but just when you felt the Olympia or Vicar Street would have been a more suitable venue, Byrne launched into Once in a Lifetime, and the venue burst into unselfconscious life. “This ain’t no disco,” he sang on Life During Wartime , and he had a point, but it sure wasn’t your typical NCH fare, either. Long before the rapturously received first, second and third encores, this show had gig of the year written all over it.

After this, a lot of gigs are going to seem unimaginative, conceptually lazy, and probably kind of dull. Above all, it proved that Byrne is a rare kind of genius. As he might say himself – same as it ever was.

delbertgrady

Thanks for posting. That review is spot on.
The first paragraph is:

Usually, when a popular songwriter performs in a venue that is more traditionally home to high culture, there is the expectation that they will be putting an emphasis on the earnest rather than the frivolous. When that songwriter is David Byrne, a musical chameleon with a long history of dabbling in the avant garde, we had even more reason to assume this would be a cerebral sort of show. And seemingly confirming those suspicions, Byrne would be limiting the performance to material on which he collaborated with Brian Eno, the mad professor of musical experimentation.

[Byrne, however, had other ideas...]

markf909

That review is spot on, one of the best gigs I've ever attended.

Was boasting to a work mate about it, but he replied that he'd already caught him on the "Stop Making Sense" tour :eek:. I was supremely jealous.

citycentre

The Belfast gig was amazing too although bizarrely the Waterfront Hall was half empty...
He still had the whole place jumping though and the reception was ecstatic...

Are the rumours about him doing EP this year true? I hear he's definitely performing at the Big Chill festival in England but that's early August... God DB at EP would be unreal....

delbertgrady

BTH wrote: »

The Belfast gig was amazing too although bizarrely the Waterfront Hall was half empty...

What?!
I know it's a bigger capacity than the NCH, but that's surprising, and even more unfortunate when you consider the queues for returns on Monday night. Maybe he should've done two shows in Dublin instead.

citycentre

delbertgrady wrote: »

What?!
I know it's a bigger capacity than the NCH, but that's surprising, and even more unfortunate when you consider the queues for returns on Monday night. Maybe he should've done two shows in Dublin instead.

I know, I was amazed. i was really apprehensive before the gig started, I thought the atmosphere was going to be awful. Thankfully that wasn't the case! I asked after the gig and the usher told me that the place was much less than half full...

I guess a lot of people in Dublin didn't know about the Belfast show. Even stranger given the fact that Belfast is so easy to get to and from by the bus which runs every hour, 24 hours. The gig was on Tuesday night and I managed to get back from Belfast to Galway by 9am on Wednesday morning for work - Granted I was pretty tired but really happy I went for it!!

And as i say, when David Byrne can have a half empty concert hall rocking the way he did in Belfast, you know you are in the presence of genius...

lordgoat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOFZbbYzNg8


IF i'd known about the 24hour bus to belfast i would have been all over that.