![]() ![]() He still has a nerdy neurotic vibe, jerking across the stage to the strains of “ Once in a Lifetime,” but he speaks directly and sincerely to the audience, aware that they embrace his ever-questioning soul, his childlike perceptions, and his global ideals. Therefore Lee focuses on delivering to us the live concert-style show in all its vitality and dimension, in the way director Jonathan Demme so effectively captured the Heads in 1984′s “ Stop Making Sense.”īyrne presides over the show as an elder statesman of rock, and of life, and he projects a warmth that hasn’t always made it through his minimalist approach. You know, naive young man comes to the city, is spiritually lost then found, winds up with “little creatures” and a “happy day.” Instead, it is a celebration of Byrne’s music at this dire moment in time, performed brilliantly and punctuated by Byrne’s concise anecdotes, asides, and philosophical comments. The show is not a collection of Byrne songs hammered into a story line, which would likely be absurd in a bad way. ![]() The latest iteration of “American Utopia” is a Spike Lee-directed film of the Broadway production (which was preceded by an album of the same title), and it’s a pure pleasure. Set to music that slides from world rhythms to “new wave” rock to something akin to lullaby, Byrne’s songs offer rousing and thought-provoking relief. But the worldview in his work is deeply compassionate, self-aware, awed, and, at times, sweetly innocent, all in the face of doom. “David Byrne’s American Utopia” isn’t without irony, of course that often-comic quality is essential to the former Talking Heads singer-songwriter’s language and his physical and vocal delivery. Uplift is scarce these days, particularly the hard-won uplift of art that speaks of hope with unblinking eyes and without cheap sentimentality. ![]()
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