David Byrne - Live at Union Chapel

Description

Recorded live in Live at Union Chapel captures David Byrne at his most irreverent. Performing 18 songs spanning four decades, Byrne effortlessly weaves lyrically potent compositions and compelling arrangements to create an unforgettable evening. Among the performances are stunning versions of David's Work, as well as Talking Heads favorites. Backed by a full band and a string section, Byrne's stage presence is matched by his masterful delivery.

Track Listing:
(Nothing But) Flowers
And She Was
Once In A Lifetime
God's Child
The Great Intoxication
Un Di Felice
The Revolution
Sax and Violins
This must Be the Place
What A Day That Was
Like Humans Do
U.B. Jesus
Life During Wartime
Lazy
I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Ausencia
The Accident
Road To Nowhere

Customer Reviews:

What can I say?.......2007-04-30

This artist is too great, is too important, there aren't words for describe this dvd, you must only buy it.

What's Not to Like about Any David Byrne Project?.......2007-01-20

I knew Not what i was gettting with this one? So i put it On, and i Must say i was Very Pleasantly Surprised. And, you know What? That's what David Byrne is All About...SuprisesAnd Great sytles of music, drama, atmosphere, choreography, production, timing, quirkiness,lyrics and tunes that One never tires of....Five Stars for sure. I had a lot of fun watching the performance even if some here didnt.

Almost live..........2007-01-09

If you have the option, you really want to see David Byrne live. Barring that, this DVD is a terrific alternative. Perhaps not so enjoyable for folks who only know Mr. Byrne from his Talking Heads days (although there are plenty of Talking Heads songs, too). But, for anyone who has heard and enjoyed his solo albums, this is a must-see.

major disappointment.......2006-09-03

I was one of the original Talking Heads fans since 1977, wore out every album on vinyl and own most on CD. I still think Stop Making Sense is one of the best concert movies made, and so, even tho Mr. Byrne's solo career has been erratic, it was with a real sense of anticipation that I dropped Live at UC into my player.

What a disappointment. This is a very heavily and oddly orchestrated disaster where he backs himself with nothing but strings and percussion. I think any time you see pages of music being flipped on music stands, it's a bad sign for a rock and roll concert, but this approaches self-parody. Video closeups of anoymous violinists finishing energetic solos with a satisfied grin look like a Saturday Night Live satire. Mr. Byrne sings gamely, but his voice has clearly lost range and its edge for the Talking Heads classics. The pace of the concert is brutally slow and shots of the audience look understandably enervated. To make things worse, he repeatedly interrupts the concert in order to indulge himself with interview clips, where I have to assume he is aspiring to be enigmatic and Dylanesque, but just appears to be rather boring and obtuse. Overall the effect is annoying.

I'd say if you are a diehard David Byrne fan, you may find some diverting moments on this disc, but if you're looking for a good rock and roll show, avoid this like the plague and pick up Stop Making Sense.

Not SMS, still good tho.......2006-07-17

Congrats, you're a Talking Heads and/or David Byrne fan and you stumbled across this DVD and what you really want to know is, is it really a 5-star knock-down brilliant masterpiece? In short, is it as good as Stop Making Sense? Well, no it isn't.

Bummer. Well, then is it a dreadful, disastrous 1-star fiasco that you should avoid like the plague? Well, no, it isn't that either.

For starters, it's very different than Stop Making Sense was. Just the setting by itself is different. Union Chapel isn't a big, broad stage but a smaller, intimate setting, with myriad lights playing off the stained glass paintings overhead. Byrne's lead mic is probably not 10 feet from the front row pews, which curve around the stage in almost a semi-circle. Byrne also talks to the audience (and, unfortunately, to the camera: pieces of an interview with Byrne, which would have made a great bonus feature, are disruptively dropped in between songs). So the classic Stop Making Sense trick of not showing the audience until the very end simply wouldn't work here. It's a more interactive performance. Don't worry, though, the crowd shots are few and generally tastefully done. The video direction is not Jonathan Demme brilliant and is too fond of closeups, but neither does it make frenetic cuts from one thing to another every half-second.

And as for the music itself? Well, David Byrne has gone in a lot of directions since he left the Heads, and a fair number of them are on display here, from sambas to operatics, and a number of Heads songs that postdate SMS, like "Nothing But Flowers" and "Road to Nowhere," which turn out to be terrific live cuts. More importantly, though, the SOUND of Byrne's band has changed. Gone are the muscular keyboards and the righteously jubilant backup singers. In their place is a--gasp!--string section, which on tracks like Life During Wartime works a lot better than you'd think. The percussion is there in full, though it's more delicate and less aggressive than the Heads' were. Byrne often sings alone, and if he's joined it's usually by his crooning bassist. The ultimate result is a thinner, more acoustic sound, with relatively gentle crescendos and few to none of the spacy 80s synthesizers or funky distorted guitars. Even Byrne's voice is a bit reedier than before, though he remains the dynamic singer he always was.

So in sum, this will inevitably be compared to Stop Making Sense, and perhaps unfairly so. Because SMS was just maybe the best rock concert ever put to tape. Live at Union Chapel is just a pretty darn good show. It may not be as memorable, but it's still a lot of fun.

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