Midway through the first show of his three-night run at the Met, David Byrne recalled a quote by actor and playwright John Cameron Mitchell to the effect that love and kindness are today’s version of punk rock — “a form of resistance.”
That concept, which Byrne confessed to being confused by upon first encountering it, seems to have provided the former Talking Heads frontman with a framework for his dazzling new show. For two hours on Thursday, Byrne and his 13-piece band engaged in a vibrant act of communion and celebration that came out in the end feeling like a full-throated protest.
Byrne’s justly lauded 2018 “American Utopia” tour felt like a reinvention of the rock concert; so much so, that it was translated directly to Broadway. His new show — supporting his delightful new album Who is the Sky? — shares much in common with its predecessor. Once again the full ensemble, clad head-to-toe in bright blue pajama-style outfits, sport mobile instruments that free them to roam the stage, blurring the lines between musicians, singers, and dancers.
Where “American Utopia” took place against a backdrop of minimalist gray, this time around the stage abounds in color and movement. A semicircular video screen surrounds the band, illustrating Byrne’s songs in sometimes literal, sometimes wry fashion.
The world has gone through some seismic shifts since Byrne brought “American Utopia” to the Mann seven years ago. Much of Byrne’s narrative in Thursday’s show consisted of pandemic memories.
For “My Apartment is My Friend,” the screen brought the Met audience into the Manhattan apartment where the singer spent his lockdown. Introducing “Everybody’s Coming to My House” under a single stark light bulb during his encore, Byrne concluded that the takeaway from that trying period was that, “We as people love being together.”
The audience at the Met certainly concurred with that sentiment. Much of the performance was met with rapturous applause; the Talking Heads classic “Slippery People,” with its adversarial call-and-response between the frontman and four dancer/singers, received such a sustained ovation that it seemed to take even Byrne by surprise.
Half of Thursday’s set featured songs from Byrne’s former band, which recently reached a kind of détente with the rerelease of its 1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense. The show opened with a tender rendition of “Heaven” from 1979’s Fear of Music, with Byrne backed by strings and keyboards as the Earth rose above a lunar landscape behind him. “There she is, our heaven,” he said afterward, gesturing toward the globe. “The only one we have.”
Following that sentiment with the unifying “Everybody Laughs,” the first single from Who is the Sky?, typified the evening’s balance of message and mirth. That sentiment is perhaps summed up nowhere more than in another new song, “I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party,” a comic musing on existentialism and carnal pleasure that found the singer being carried around the stage by his dancers.
The new songs melded seamlessly with more familiar favorites. After a brief slideshow about his day in Philly that indicated visits to Isaiah Zagar’s Magic Gardens and the Mütter Museum, the band marched in formation for “And She Was” as the screens flew over a housing development.
Abandoned store shelves illustrated “(Nothing But) Flowers,” while the scene turned into a primordial forest for “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody),” which had the cast calling across the stage with hands cupped to their mouths.
“Psycho Killer” was revived for this tour for the first time in nearly two decades, opening with Byrne in a harsh spotlight — his shadow not always cooperating with his movements. That was just one striking moment among many: the full band bouncing as orange static hissed and glowed during “Once in a Lifetime’ and the ensemble closing ranks, lit from below by a menacing red glow on “Houses in Motion,” were others.
A new song about T-shirts as mode of communication saw a number of slogans flashed on screen — familiar Jersey Shore fare like “Life’s a Beach” and “I’m With Stupid” alternating with more pointed messages: “Make America Gay Again” or “No Kings,” just in time for Saturday’s planned rallies. (Not to mention the more pandering “Philadelphia kicks ass.”)
Little flourishes like that throughout, paired with Byrne’s oblique storytelling, hinted at that nouveau-punk response to our turbulent times.
It all came to a head on a visceral rendition of “Life During Wartime” accompanied by images of protests and conflagrations. The name-dropped Mudd Club and CBGBs are long gone, leaving the embracing urgency of Byrne’s performance to offer punk a new headquarters — one, he suggests, we need to make time for now.
David Byrne’s “Who Is the Sky?” Tour
📅 Oct. 17—18, 8 p.m.,📍 The Met Philadelphia
