ON the Beat | Might as Well Jump

David Byrne at the Santa Barbara Bowl 2026 | Photo: Carl Perry

Where Something Always Happens

The Santa Barbara Bowl season has launched with gusto, and not a week too soon. As is usually the case, we benefit from time-space proximity to Coachella, first on the two-night stand from Disclosure (read Callie Fausey’s review here) and then David Byrne’s fun-brainy spectacular last week. “Spectacle” is the proper word for this dazzling pageant of Byrne’s classic career-crossing songbook, refreshed through wildly inventive and wraparound visuals.

A genuine post-Byrne buzz has been matriculating through town in the wake of this remarkable show, part of the “Who is the Sky?” tour, which grew out of his long-running “American Utopia” project, which also stopped at the Bowl. Yes, it is a kind of greatest hits (and more) collection, but one with radically and stunningly reworked settings. Much thanks go to the visual wizardry for realizing Byrne’s vision of what was essentially a new stage set for each song. That, in harmonious cooperation with the boss’s tight, tireless choreography and his blue-uniformed ensemble, made for an extremely in-the-moment journey through our musical past.

This was one rare Bowl show in which audience photos do capture what was on stage, thanks to the crisp, colorful stage sets on parade.

David Byrne at the Santa Barbara Bowl 2026 | Photo: Josef Woodard

Byrne could have just given the crowds on his tour a standard brand jukebox account of his hit-packed and tasty, deep-cut-filled songbook, except he’s anything but standard brand, still an active and forward-thinking artist, seeking out new ways to keep his art and our senses alive.

Strategically, the ever-shifting, fireworked dynamics of the show were framed by mellow moments, opening with Byrne’s secular, winking hymn, “Heaven” (“A place where nothing ever happens,” in contrast to what happened on this night) and Brian Eno’s ambient drifter “An Ending (Ascent),” to end in a mist.

A few of my own high points in between those gentle bookends: “T-Shirt” (with photos he took around Santa Barbara the day before), “Like Humans Do” (with animal-headed doppelgänger dancers on the screen), “Slippery People” (fueled by gushing green water imagery), and “My Apartment is My Friend” (with a guided tour of his actual N.Y.C. apartment).

Pardon the obvious pun, but it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime, synchronicity-kissed moment when the show reached its climactic tune, the anthemic “Once in a Lifetime,” just as one of Elon Musk’s Vandenburg-launched rockets flared through the air at 9:31 p.m. Byrne had warned us of this earlier in the show, and the magic moment in the sky behind the Bowl — most easily visible to the performers — coincided with increasingly ecstatic visual razzle dazzle on the screen. It was an epiphanic high, without the need for external intoxicants.

This was no simple party, disco, heebie-jeebie, or fooling around. This ever-thinking, forward-moving artist doesn’t have time for that now. Neither do we.

(See Leslie Dinaberg’s review here).

Lobero Notes, Noted

Certain artists resonate especially well in the deep, historic ambiance of the Lobero Theatre. We were of this phenomenon at recent, memorable shows there by Madeleine Peyroux, Leo Kottke, and the humbly heroic, singer-songwriter-guitar wizard Richard Thompson. Peyroux’s show, part of her “We Are America” tour, was one of the year’s fine concert events, partly because of its special focus on music from America, and from and by Americans in the “other” category.

In other words, she paid tribute to the genuinely all-American status of immigrant songs (but no, she did not play Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”). Highlights included her personalized take on the great Paul Simon’s “American Tune” — its melody borrowed from J.S. Bach — and Randy Newman’s haunting “In Germany Before the War.” Another highlight of the evening was the always-savory guitar work of the masterful Jon Herington, who we’ve also heard in town with Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs. He kills it with kindness.

In other guitar news, great American acoustic guitar iconoclast Kottke reconfirmed his long-standing Lobero sympatico with another thrilling journey through his quirky Twin City space twang of a style. In a strange way, hearing Thompson’s ever-inventive guitar work — he’s never been one for the standard chord strumming singer-songwriter mold — seemed to echo Kottke’s restless adventurism. After Thompson’s opening tune, “Stony Ground,” the innate jokester teased, “that’s a song about mature lust, something you’ve never had to deal with.” Then he peered into the crowd and added, “I take that back.”

But a good Thompson show, which this certainly was, is a serio-comic journey through one of the more fascinating songbooks of our day, full of historical detours and dark side of love notes. An added attraction was the inclusion of his attractive-voiced wife Zara Phillips, who served as a latter-day surrogate for Thompson’s ex-wife and musical partner Linda, on the treasured old duo songs “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight” and “Withered and Died.”

True to his deft way with irony, he closed the official set — now fortified with bass and drums — with the disarmingly feel-good classic “Wall of Death” (another Richard and Linda classic). It’s a timeless earworm, pestering my brain even as I think about it. May Thompson’s strong relationship with the Lobero carry on as long as we all carry on.

All Hail the Sweet Ass Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Nerf Herder at Lobero Theatre | Photo Josef Woodard

It was a very different kind of hot Lobero night, last Saturday, with a pop, punky triple-header featuring bands from the 805 who, in the ‘90s, burst forth far outside the 805. Rydell High and Summercamp played the hot-lathering warmups for the mighty, the meaty, and the joke ‘n’ riffy Nerf Herder, riding high 30 years after their hit album launched them into music world space.

In honor of that anniversary, the band re-recorded its debut platter in older, wiser, and mostly unplugged form. But at the Lobero, they were demonstrably not unplugged, funneling their friendly neighborhood fury through Marshall amps and a big ass Ampeg bass amp.

Parry Gripp, the golf shirted and always half smirking rock front man, led the charge with his able stablemates, drummer Steve Sherlock, basis Ben Pringle — also a fine classical baritone and, to quote organist/choirmaster Thomas Joyce, a “musical chameleon—” and lead guitarist Linus of Hollywood, who peeled off some requisite Eddie-style dweedle dweedle hammer-ons on “Van Halen.”

Speaking of that tasty number, we were reminded of Herder’s uncanny way of delivering quirky hooks that stick, with the final sentiment “might as well jump.” That became a kind of fight song for the attitude of fatalistic abandon for the night and for the not-so-young-anymore S.R.O. crowd, in full dance and bounce mode.

Other left-hook hooks included “rice cakes, rice cakes, rice cakes,” from “Nosering Girl,” and another anthemic mantra to end the night: At the end of “The Sportsman Bar” (one of several Santa Barbara toasts in the set), the band hammered home a central theme, “all hail the sweet ass rock ‘n’ roll.” Indeed, muthafuckas.

A most brilliant thing about Nerf Herder, then and now, is that we get to have our sweet-ass rock and roll, and laugh at it, too.

Piano Man of Varied Hats

Antonio Artese at SOhO | Photo: Josef Woodard

Antonio Artese, the Santa Barbaran by way of Italy, and a very fine jazz pianist by way of a classical pedigree, could be found working overtime last weekend. On Friday, he briefly performed his own composition — with featured performer Laurie Rasmussen on harp — as part of the popular and ongoing Music & Meditation series at the Music Academy of the West. On Saturday, there he was in jazz-cum-classical garb at the first annual La Piazza Italian festival at the Faulkner gallery.

And on Monday night, SOhO was treated to another gig in almost strictly jazz mode, with his stellar West Coast Trio. Here, he was joined by the superb, listening-oriented drummer Mark Ferber and bassist Luca Alemanno, making their way through originals and such standards as “Autumn Leaves.” Pressing world events were not lost on this night or this performer. Before playing his ballad “Hymn,” Artese mentioned that he played for the Pope, two popes ago. “The Pope is very popular right now,” he accurately pointed out. Introducing his faintly Bartók-ian piece “Bartokiana,” “Thank you, Hungary,” he said, regarding the recent Orbán-ousting election. “Minus one now.”

In the second set, the pianist invited up a down-to-earth Italian flute virtuoso, Tommaso Benciolini, for an encore of the piece both had played at the Faulkner the day before Claude Bolling’s quaint classical-jazz Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio. The young and handsome gay may not be an improviser, per se, but he brought passion and precision — plus a gorgeous tone — to his game. Inspired music was the name of Monday’s game at SOhO.

Before Artese heads back to Italy for duties there, catch him in the ‘hood tonight, April 23, at the new jazz chapel in town, The Grand on State.

TO-DOINGS:

Serious Indian Music Head’s Up

Although Indian classical music has graced Santa Barbara stages in years past, including visits by the Shankars (Ravi and daughter Anoushka), and visits by proxy through Kavi Alexander’s great indie label Water Lily Acoustics (hear here), the pickings have been mighty lean in recent years. This perks up our ears to hear of the arrival of the intriguing South Indian hybrid project ATMA Ensemble, playing UCSB’s Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall on Saturday night. Expect resonances of Carnatic music, jazz touches, and other flavors in its musical mélange, with violin (Aishwarya), mridangam, drums, and a clay pot in the mix.

Founded by Dr. Aishwarya V. Pareek, a concert violinist and pediatric neurologist, ATMA takes its name from the acronym “Alliance for Tradition in Musical Arts” and the Sanskrit word for “soul.”

Jazz Fest News Up Paso Way

Jazz fans with ears to the ground, and underground, know about the wondrous basement jazz club in the heart of Paso Robles, the Libretto, which has been hosting some top names — mostly of the piano contingent — in an ideal and respectful venue worth traveling to. Something special alights there in the form of the first Paso Robles Jazz Fest, April 24-26. The line-up, mostly at the Libretto but with an April 26 grand finale at the sensational Sensorio,includes new jazz piano titan Sullivan Fortner, the luminous Gerald Clayton, Taylor Eigsti, Christian Sands, Paul Cornish, Elisa Biro, and more.Road trip, anyone?

Santa Ynez Concert Series

The wonderful Santa Ynez Concert series, at the St. Mark’s in the Valley church in Los Alamos, brings its varied five-concert season to a close with a handful — or two handfuls — of piano music glory, featuring the piano four hands specializing Duo Giacopuzzi. The brother and sister teaming of Jacopo and Maddalena will perform repertoire by Dvorak, Borodin, Ravel, Saint-Saens, Liszt, and Say, on Sunday, April 26, at 4 p.m. Jacopo, a world-traveled pianist, has had a strong Santa Barbara connection of late.

The Music Academy of the West fellow, circa 2014, now has a base in town and was responsible for launching the recent La Piazza Italian festival at the Faulkner gallery, also appearing as a performer. (See Independent story here).