The Roundhouse was the place. David Byrne and St Vincent and their eight piece brass band was the show.
Byrne made an unseen announcement to the crowd ten minutes beforehand: "Please can you keep all filming to a minimum so as not to spoil the enjoyment of others". Boom! There was a rousing round of applause before they were even on stage.
The band entered one by one, followed by the protagonists; and the audience hushed in anticipation. They launched straight into two tracks from the recent collaborative album Love this Giant: Who and Weekend In the Dust. Both tracks highlight exquisitely the skill of all band members.
Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) and her trademark stage shuffle treated us to some of her own tracks; the impressive Save Me From What I Want and the beguiling Marrow being two of her early highlights in the set.
Following the band introductions; including a pause to tell you what you should buy from the merchandise stall; was the song and performance of the night. Wild Wild Life, of the Talking Heads album True Stories; stood out head and shoulders above all others. Each band member took turns on the microphone conga style to sing a line of the song. I looked around in the crowd to see a complete sea of bobbing heads and grinning faces.
The choreography was visually quite beautiful throughout. Everyone on stage shifted from song to song. So much direction; so much dancing, so much arrangement and so much action on stage for the audience to watch. Personally, I couldn't work out how the guy with the sousaphone was able to dance and play at the same time. All band members had their own personalities; I didn't know where to look. One couldn't help but copy the dancing on stage. It was a little bit like Simon* (*David Byrne) Says!
Alongside many of the Love This Giant tracks; Byrne (dressed strikingly all in white) did reach into the Talking Heads back catalogue; This Must Be The Place and Burning Down the House proving hugely popular in the arena. The forgotten solo dance gem, Lazy; was also played to surprised "oh, of course, I remember that!" faces.
There were two encores to this show; including fantastic St Vincent renditions of Northern Lights (complete with Byrne karate kicking towards a theremin!) and a beautiful haunting version of The Party. The final Talking Heads singalong Road to Nowhere was a reminder to everyone at the show how much of a privilege being in attendance at The Roundhouse really was. No one was filming this on a camera; as David advised us all not to. We all had taken this in with our own eyes and ears, like humans do.
There are't many occasions where two superb musicians can team up and put on a show like this. The Byrne/Clark Love This Giant partnership is one of pure joy. Plus, they know how to entertain; as David Byrne wailed during one song in particular to the adoring audience: "I know that's the way you like it, whoah, living wild wild life".
