David Byrne: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno

Fresh and innovative - the same as it ever was

David Byrne and Brian Eno first worked together on three of the early Talking Heads albums.

In 1981 the pair released the innovative My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, a fusion of Afro- funk rhythms and spoken-word samples. Last year Eno created instrumentals and asked Byrne to provide lyrics for a new album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, which has prompted Byrne to create this celebration of the pair's musical ideas.

The whole band was dressed in white with Byrne, ever the performance artist-as-musician, dipping and bopping as his disco- funk guitar scratches accompanied what is surely one of rock's most unique voices.

Strange Overtones from the new album was an uplifting opening, though the sound was lacking. But there were cheers as Byrne cherry-picked from those classic Heads albums More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music and Remain in Light. The nonsense poetry and African rhythms of I Zimbra saw the white-man funk flow and three dancers were introduced for the first of many sporadic, scene- stealing performances.

Midway through the set there was a change of gears, not so much from the band, which loped through Heaven and several tracks from Everything That Happens (the sound drastically improved after the first number); it was a case of the audience lifting its game, up from seats and flowing steadily to the front.

Iconic Talking Heads tracks (Crosseyed and Painless, Once In A Lifetime, Life During Wartime) pulsed and probed as backing singers and dancers moved across the stage to ensure there was never anything close to a dull moment. Help Me Somebody (from Bush of Ghosts) was positively electric and encores of Al Green's Take Me To The River as well as The Great Curve and Air kept the audience on its feet, toes tapping and hands clapping.

Burning Down the House was the feel-good encore, house lights on full to show everybody standing.

David Byrne's musical career across three decades has seen him constantly move forward, inventing rather than repeating; this performance was a showcase of that, also showing that, in many ways, the music he and Brian Eno have made together sits in its own near-timeless bubble; new songs merging with old, everything that happened sounding fresh.

David Byrne: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno

Michael Fowler Centre, Friday

- © Fairfax NZ News