It was just me in my bedroom but still had such a visceral impact, which is something I’d also felt with Stop Making Sense. I was just totally grinning and couldn’t sit still, despite having no influence from, as you say, proper, sweaty, close-contact spaces. And I really feel like it had a similar effect to a gig, where I went in not expecting tons – or expecting some things I knew I’d enjoy on paper, but I didn’t expect to feel totally re-energised after in a very physical way. Three if you count Contemporary Color.Įlla: Well, I plainly, completely, entirely loved it.
#AMERICAN UTOPIA RUN TIME MOVIE#
I think it’s testament to Byrne’s have-a-go attitude that he’s managed to pull off not one, but two concert movies that redefine what a concert movie can be.
#AMERICAN UTOPIA RUN TIME FREE#
Watching his band members, free of wires and marks, roam the stage and, more often than not, lose themselves in the music too, is just as thrilling. It’s tough not to compare American Utopia to Stop Making Sense (which we’ll probably do later) but it shares all that same euphoria I remember experiencing the first time David Byrne walked out on stage with his tape recorder. So, in an effort to try to recapture that gig magic in some way, I’ve got to ask that age-old question: What did you think then? And, to me, there’s no greater moment than that post-gig debrief at the pub or on the trip home. Proper, sweaty, close-contact gigs where dancing isn’t an exercise in avoidance. – Ella Kemp, Film EditorĬhris: It’s been a while since we’ve had gigs. Turn up Lee and Byrne's brand new masterpiece, and enjoy the show. It's not the real thing and we won't get it for a while – but it's the best we can do for now. You know the one: all the things you would have said if you could hear each other over the noise during the show, the giddy snatches of thought you have to vocalise before they disappear into dust forever, the "did that really happen?" moments you have to check with each other, ears still ringing, legs still wobbling, sweaty palms now grateful for the ice-cold air and the feeling of just having lived something brand new, together. And so to get one step closer to remembering what the real thing was, is, and always will be like, my esteemed colleague, music writer Chris Taylor and I, have transcribed what would have been the post-gig debrief. This is what this version of American Utopia does. We could talk about how tedious and neverending this year has been, how frustrated and devastated we have been to be at home so much, or we could cling onto the things that help us get through it all.
This version of American Utopia, Byrne's sell-out show performing numbers from his solo album of the same name but also building a whole world made up of musings and memories from his Talking Heads day as well, elevates the material to new heights while reminding us just how thankful we can be that it exists. It's a pure, intelligent and often electrifying thing – and never more so than when trusted in the hands of the great Spike Lee. Irrespective of the year and its circumstances, unprecedented or otherwise, there is magic in the seams of every David Byrne performance.
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