David Byrne Show Inspires Hope, Humanity, and Whole Lot of Nostalgia

Talk about a once in a lifetime experience!

Tuesday night’s David Byrne show at the Santa Barbara Bowl was such a special one. The guy just oozes creativity and caring — not to mention talent — from his core, and the thoughtfulness that went into his show left us all feeling a little bit better about the world than when we got there.

From start to finish, a David Byrne show is a SHOW in every possible, imaginative and incredibly well thought out way.

A true renaissance man in pop star form, after biking to the venue from his hotel, Byrne began the evening with a funny voiceover intro, then walked out onto the stage with four musicians dressed identically in blue jumpsuits, singing the Talking Heads song “Heaven.” As the lights came up they soon revealed an elaborate floor to ceiling video set unlike anything I’ve ever seen at the Bowl. The effect was so immersive, it looked just like they were serenading us from the moon. Another band member brought Byrne a guitar as he pointed to the image of earth on the screen and quipped, “There she is, as seen on TV. Heaven, the only one we have.”

The underlying themes of hope, common ground, and the joy of dancing amid life’s uncertainties and these crazy times prevailed throughout the night. It was truly fabulous from an artistic production standpoint too, not to mention how much fun it was running into almost everyone I went to high school with in town.

If you grew up in the 80s, then David Byrne’s voice is somewhere in your soundtrack.

Eventually 12 identically clad but widely varying band members joined Byrne on stage and each song had its own unique set and choreography. For “Everybody Laughs” from the 2025 album he’s touring for — Who Is the Sky? — the message “Congratulations humanity — we made it” flashed on the screen.

Favorite Talking Heads tunes like 1983’s “This Must Be The Place,” and  1985’s “And She Was” — which Byrne said he wrote about a blissed-out happy hippie girl in high school taking LSD out in a field near the Yoo-hoo soda factory — paired seamlessly with newer tunes like “What is the Reason For It?” and “When We Are Singing” from Who Is the Sky? I was particularly enamored by “My Apartment is My Friend,” written during the COVID shut-downs and accompanied by video footage of Byrne’s apartment in New York.

For the new song, “T-Shirt,” with its memorable lyrics “In this land of milk and honey / In this future, bright and gay / Though the shirt is old and saggy / And its words will fade away,” Byrne upped the effect of some already powerful prose with an impressive assortment of wear your heart on your chest style T-Shirt designs on screen. Rumor has it they were photos snapped that day in Santa Barbara.

That was followed very effectively by the 1988 song “(Nothing But) Flowers,” which juxtaposes an Adam and Eve kind of paradise against the modern conveniences we pay so dearly for. As he’s done in other shows this tour, Byrne shared a story from actor-director John Cameron Mitchell, who told him, “Love and kindness are the most punk thing we can do right now.” He said at the time, he didn’t get it right away, but that now he understood it. “Love and kindness are a form of resistance.” That was certainly the message of his show that night.

The evening was perfectly choreographed but still managed to feel genuinely heartfelt and sincere, down to Byrne’s clever and egalitarian use of the screens to introduce each of his band members, including himself (David), and Yuri, Stephanie, Mauro, Tim, Kely, Ray, Daniel, Tendayi, Jordan, Hannah, Sean, and Sasha. Later this was followed by onscreen end credits. It really was a production.

Byrne also spoke movingly about the joys of being in a concert setting and sharing music together, which clearly resonated with the sold out crowd, the majority of whom I would guess, like me, grew up listening to his music in the ‘80s. “Despite all our differences, despite all the craziness, people love being with other people,” he said.

Then, like the great showman he is, he closed out the set with three old but still lovingly punk tunes: “Psycho Killer,” “Life During Wartime,” and “Once in a Lifetime.” I don’t know if it was a once in a lifetime opportunity (I hope he’s coming back), but it was certainly one I’m glad I didn’t miss out on.