Stop Making Sense: Talking Heads still burning down the house four decades later

The year was 1983, the band was Talking Heads, and the tour was Stop Making Sense. Returning to the stage after a hiatus, the art-rock group set out on a tour planned to be so brilliant, inventive, and memorable that they felt a film had to be made for all to see.

Directed by Jonathan Demme (of The Silence Of The Lambs fame) and released the following year, the film made sure that the band’s final tour would be forever crystallised in history. 40 years later, a careful, loving restoration made by production company A24 allowed those who would never get to see Talking Heads live experience a taste of what it might have been like. Perhaps the closest one could be to seeing the band in all their prowess would be to watch them on an 85-foot wide and 65-foot-tall cinema screen, not unlike Southbank’s BFI IMAX. The concert film restoration premiered on Monday 11th September at the Toronto International Film Festival and was met with raging acclaim. Watching the show up close in London, The Mancunion gets as near as it ever would to the band and their music, and it was truly touching.

The performance began with the man that started it all, holding the instrument that started it all: frontman David Byrne and the acoustic guitar, alone on stage. Accompanied by a simple drum track, the first few chords of the band’s most lionised song began to be strummed, and a stripped-back version of ‘Psycho Killer’ opened the concert and set the stage for a magnificent build. With bassist Tina Weymouth now joining Byrne, an enchanting rendition of ‘Heaven’ flooded the hall next. Byrne’s vocals paired with backup singer Lynn Mabry echoed in a magical harmony, creating something effortlessly beautiful. ‘Thank You for Sending Me An Angel’ spruced up the pace of the concert, introducing drummer Chris Frantz into the mix. Keyboardist and guitarist Jerry Harrison entered next to the Brian Eno-produced groove of ‘Found A Job’, and the four original Talking Heads were all finally on stage. However, greatness had only just begun.

Whilst dancing across the stage, Mabry and fellow backup vocalist Edna Holt supplied powerful backup vocals and contagious smiles to ‘Slippery People’, with percussionist Steve Scales masterfully adding his bongos into the rhythm section. Once the sixth number of ‘Burning Down the House’ launched, the star-studded concert lineup was complete with the additions of keyboardist Bernie Worrell and guitarist Alex Weir. Director Demme then cut away to provide glimpses at the concert audience, now all up on their dancing feet. Watching years later, it was clear that Talking Heads were absolutely ‘Burning Down the House’ with their sound and presence.

Every number had a charm which was uniquely theirs, whether that be the big suit Byrne wears during ‘Girlfriend Is Better’(now synonymous with the film, tour and band), the physical laps around the band Byrne runs in ‘Life During Wartime’, the ever-shifting positions and swapping of instruments all members partake in, or the lighting and backdrops flowing into something new for each song. There was even a number where front-man Byrne leaves the stage, letting Weymouth and Frantz’s art-pop side project Tom Tom Club play their classic single ‘Genius Of Love’.

Everything was purposefully and perfectly choreographed, but executed in such a way that felt like it originated on the spot. The audience was pulled into the screen and onto the stage: the smiles of Holt and Mabry were the audience’s smiles; the jumps of Weymouth and Weir matched film-goer’s jumps of giddiness; the joyful shouts of Scales were the shouts of joy the cinema too wanted to let out. By the final number of ‘Crosseyed And Painless’, Demme’s audience had been taken on a ride that angled only upwards, building higher and higher until soaring in a sky of sound – among clouds of funk, rock, and new-wave.

If one was lucky enough to have watched the screening at TIFF, an amusingly awkward live interview with Talking Heads took place right after. A recording of it played in London and other theatres around the world. This tour was Talking Heads’ last, and the band next returned to the stage in 2002 for their Rock Of Roll Hall of Fame induction – unfortunately, their separation from one another could be felt in this interview. Despite the regular dead air, the audience gained an insight into the four core members’ experiences of the tour and a broader vision of how the film was made. It was a shame that Demme could not be there, having passed in 2017.

The film was called Stop Making Sense, but when one watched it and lived it, it felt like everything made sense. Everything in the world made sense because everything in the world was in front of you. The only thing that mattered in that hour and twenty minutes was the music in one’s ears, one’s eyes, one’s soul. Stop Making Sense was – and is – a fitting celebration of a ‘Once In A Lifetime’ tour and a ‘Once In A Lifetime’ band.

Words by Maia Martin