David Byrne and St Vincent, Roundhouse - music review

Byrne has embraced his own awkwardness to become a mighty live performer. Last night’s show owed a debt to Bruce Springsteen’s concerts with his Seeger Sessions Band, but two heady hours overflowed with all the magic that pop music can muster
7 September 2013

Even David Byrne's most devoted followers would struggle to suggest that he has eclipsed his work with Talking Heads in the 25 years since their final album. Yet form is temporary and class is permanent: Love This Giant, his collaboration with Annie "St Vincent" Clark, is his best since he disbanded his band.

Intriguingly, as a solo artist, Byrne has embraced his own awkwardness to become a mighty live performer. Last night’s show, which also featured Clark, a drummer, keyboardist and brass octet (including the ever-welcome sousaphone), owed a debt to Bruce Springsteen’s concerts with his Seeger Sessions Band, but two heady hours overflowed with all the magic that pop music can muster. Playing most of Love This Giant and dipping into Byrne and Clark’s catalogues, the delight was in the detail. Wearing tall heels and taking tiny, tiny steps, Clark moved like a Nutcracker Suite mouse. In contrast, Byrne began

in a blazer and slacks like an avant Alan Partridge, moved like a Chinese Politburo member attempting to boogie and proclaimed "now for my favourite part of the show: the part where we tell you what’s on sale outside". Perhaps inevitably, the perfectly different but perfectly matched duo mimed a kung-fu fight during the theremin solo in Northern Lights.

The brass section were wonderfully choreographed, whether playing sprawled on the floor like drunks on Cheerleader, solo slow-motion waltzing during The Party or best of all, circling the microphone during Wild Wild Life taking a vocal line in turn. They could play a bit, too. An aural treat, a visual feast and joy to spare. Nobody could have left unsatisfied.

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