“Sing into my mouth…”
David Byrne, I may never recover. The muscles of my face ache. The moment you took the stage, I settled into an alternately dreamy-giddy-ecstatic-awestruck-giddy-dreamy smile that lasted for two hours. Oh David Byrne, I love you till my heart stops, love you till I’m dead. Oh David Byrne, you’ve got a face with a view.
Thanks be to Keaton, who turned to me in the third song and said “Let’s go down and dance!” And so we climbed toward the stage, where big thick bouncers were glaring at anyone who tried to get any closer than the wings, but then all of a sudden the people around us rushed forward and Keats grabbed my arm and we ran in front of the stage, right up against it and right in front of David, who was wearing a train conductor’s striped overalls and a white shirt, his white hair turning red and then green and then yellow and white again under the lights. He loves dancing backwards and he shakes his hips with a fair amount of awkwardness and he does that odd neck-dancing thing he’s been doing for years and he makes funny rhythmic movements with his arms floating out from his sides and his eyes get big as globes when he wiggles in his overalls and when he sings loudly and strongly and opera-like his face spreads into an otherworldly grin and it’s almost as though he’s left and gone somewhere else, and there we are together. My halter top and I danced ourselves damp and Keats’ blond ponytail was bouncing and her big boots thumping, and I kept looking over to see if she was as irrationally caught up in it all as I was, and at one point we turned to each other, dancing, and smiled so wide we thought our faces might split and she made a motion with her hands like invisible tears were rolling down her aching cheeks, and David looked so happy and so genuinely moved by all of us down below him, adoring. Oh, it is good to be so silly and adoring at a David Byrne show. I almost cried again when he played “The Great Intoxication,” and you would have too. It’s so beautiful. I would say I’m ridiculous, but I’m not.
But, dear reader, I am going to try my hardest not to write any
more about Major Genius Mr. Byrne. I don’t want to bore
you.