{"id":444258,"date":"2026-08-26T17:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T17:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/444258\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T17:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T17:58:11","slug":"review-talking-heads-icon-david-byrne-brings-concert-tour-to-berkeley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/444258\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Talking Heads icon David Byrne brings concert tour to Berkeley"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Byrne<\/a> just keeps on redefining the concert experience.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an adventure that he embarked during the early days with his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act Talking Heads<\/a>, best witnessed today by revisiting director Jonathan Demme\u2019s groundbreaking concert documentary \u201cStop Making Sense\u201d<\/a> from 1984, and he\u2019s still finding new and dramatic ways to tinker with the process on his current Who Is the Sky? Tour.<\/p>\n

A full house of fans turned out to see the results on Tuesday night (Aug. 25) at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, which marked the trek\u2019s third time through the Bay Area \u2014 following a three-night run in November at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco and then a one-nighter back in April at the Frost Amphitheater on the Stanford University campus.<\/p>\n

Taking the stage just after 8 p.m., Byrne<\/a> would delight his longtime followers with a roughly 100-minute show that consisted of 21 songs. As expected, the Talking Heads<\/a> numbers \u2014 of which there were 11 played on this night \u2014 proved to be the most popular with the audience members. Yet, fans were also moderately appreciative of the solo material, which included five songs from Byrne\u2019s so-so new album (and tour namesake) \u201cWho\u2019s the Sky?\u201d from 2025.<\/p>\n

Visually, however, everything was pretty much equally spellbinding \u2014 which is the true greatness of this tour. Building upon what he accomplished with the highly applauded tour for 2018\u2019s \u201cAmerican Utopia,\u201d as well as the associated Broadway show and Spike Lee-directed performance film, Byrne is once again working with a large cast of mobile musicians, untethered from cords and other bits of stationary apparatus and free to roam about the stage.<\/p>\n

The result is so unlike what were are used to seeing on the concert arena \u2014 where, for example, the drummer is put in the middle of the action and stays there for the entire performance \u2014 as the musicians constantly swirl about the stage in ways that always enhance and, at times, mimic the music itself. The choreography of the dozen-plus players on the stage is exuberant, playful and brilliantly timed, creating moments that draw both applause and gasps of joy from the crowd.<\/p>\n

Byrne and an initially small group of players kicked off the evening with a lovely, slowed-down take on \u201cHeaven,\u201d the Talking Heads masterpiece from Side 2 of 1979\u2019s \u201cFear of Music,\u201d then more musicians and dancers joined in for the new album\u2019s upbeat \u201cEverybody Laughs.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the tour\u2019s first date back in the U.S., following a run of shows in Asia, something Byrne would allude to when he first took time to greet the crowd in Berkeley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe arrived here from Seoul. A little bit jetlagged,\u201d the visionary singer-songwriter said. \u201cBut we did get out and about.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d then take time to show us, via the three big screens placed at the back of the stage, what the band saw as they were \u201cout and about\u201d in the Berkeley area. The images included a drawing of \u201cmonster television\u201d that they found at a store, a small car with an huge speaker system and plenty of trees.<\/p>\n

The crowd really ate up the Talking Heads favorite \u201cAnd She Was,\u201d tolerated \u201cStrange Overtones\u201d from Byrne and Brian Eno\u2019s 2008 collaborative effort \u201cEverything That Happens Will Happen Today\u201d and was probably a bit too generous with their applause with such new album mediocrities as \u201cI Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party\u201d and \u201cMy Apartment Is My Friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Byrne left the new album and other solo efforts behind during the latter stages of the 90-minute main set. Instead, he gave fans exactly what they wanted and charged right into a four-song run of Talking Heads classics \u2014 \u201cAir,\u201d a deliriously good \u201cPsycho Killer,\u201d \u201cLife During Wartime\u201d and, finally, a powerful \u201cOnce In a Lifetime\u201d that brought the main set to a close.<\/p>\n

The troupe then returned for an all-\u201cHouse\u201d encore, sending audience home happy with a double shot of the \u201cAmerican Utopia\u201d offering \u201cEverybody\u2019s Coming to My House\u201d and then the Talking Heads smash \u201cBurning Down the House.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Byrne setlist:<\/p>\n

1. \u201cHeaven\u201d
2. \u201cEverybody Laughs\u201d
3. \u201cAnd She Was\u201d
4. \u201cStrange Overtones\u201d
5. \u201cHouses in Motion\u201d
6. \u201cT Shirt\u201d
7. \u201c(Nothing but) Flowers\u201d
8. \u201cThis Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)\u201d
9. \u201cWhat Is the Reason for It?\u201d
10. \u201cLike Humans Do\u201d
11. \u201cWhen We Are Singing\u201d
12. \u201cIndependence Day\u201d
13. \u201cSlippery People\u201d
14. \u201cI Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party\u201d
15. \u201cMy Apartment Is My Friend\u201d
16. \u201cAir\u201d
17. \u201cPsycho Killer\u201d
18. \u201cLife During Wartime\u201d
19. \u201cOnce in a Lifetime\u201d
Encore:
20. \u201cEverybody\u2019s Coming to My House\u201d
21. \u201cBurning Down the House\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Byrne just keeps on redefining the concert experience. It\u2019s an adventure that he embarked during the early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,184,764,7,2644,332,967,1533,181,330,3743,143,145,144,8257,8258,94685,420],"class_list":["post-444258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-bay-area","tag-berkeley","tag-california","tag-concerts","tag-east-bay","tag-entertainment","tag-keywee","tag-latest-headlines","tag-music","tag-nightlife","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pop-music","tag-rock-music","tag-social-alert","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}