CityLife

David Byrne

TALKING HEAD: Byrne

THERE'S legends and there’s legends.

Flogging a dead horse is recognisable from miles away and reinvention can just be nauseating but with an artist as experienced, as honest and as entertaining as David Byrne, surely nobody can witness him live and question his motivation or relevance.

Bringing the songs he’s sculpted with Brian Eno to town, his experience and enthusiasm leaves a Manchester audience in transfixed awe or engaged in intermittent yelping for two hours.

Beginning a journey through his diverse back catalogue and more recent collaborations with Eno, the Bridgewater Hall is introduced to Byrne and his band in relative darkness, but are easily picked out as they’re clad in all white against a black backdrop.

Full marks go to Byrne for detail, but sympathy for a forgiving tour manager who must dread settling the laundry bill.

Strange Overtones comes first, lifted from the latest long-player Everything That Happens Will Happen Today and sees his backing singers immediately throw their weight into the gospel infused composition.

 Fizz around

By the second song, Byrne plays his trump card in three contemporary dancers who emerge to fizz around the stage and would remain integral to the rest of the show.

One Fine Day, from the recent collection, is fantastically simple, drawing together a beautiful, immediate chorus with a folky backbone, dismissing the intense, diverse creativity of much of his work for an old fashioned tug at the heart strings.

Talking Heads must obviously get a look in, and Heaven is the moment where the show climbs yet further into brilliance and before long an excitable, lone dancer gets to his feet at the front of the stage.

Once In A Lifetime is a must-hear for anyone with ears and live it comes out wonderfully, the three dancers colouring every line and audaciously frog-jumping Byrne mid-guitar break.

One encore means you’re appreciated, so four could mean you’re loved and with Take Me To The River and a stunning Burning Down The House there was plenty to warrant the adulation.

The fourth and final act delivered the title track for the latest album and with it proved that Byrne, at his theatrical best, even wearing a tutu as he did, deserves every clap of thunderous applause.