Tonight's concert was at the State Theatre, a beautiful venue I really love. The concert is a collaboration between David Byrne and St. Vincent and is part if the 2013 Sydney Festival.

If you've been reading my blog you'd already know I have a bit of a soft spot for St. Vincent's music but the collaboration with David Byrne seemed to make this concert a different beast entirely.  The pair recorded a album in 2012 called Love This Giant, it's an album with a big brassy sound that manages to feel very tightly arranged while remaining experimentally loose at the same time and I was very curious to see how this would translate to a live performance.

The night started with a plea from David Byrne across the loud speaker for the audience to record, film and photograph the performance as it was something they were proud of and had both worked really hard to put together, he also issued a warning to maybe refrain from recording the concert on an iPad though because it may block the persons view in front of you which I thought was hilarious and it really set the tone for the night.

The musicians for the evening filed out onto the stage and there was enough brass to start a Salivation Army band! Looking at the photos you'd be forgiven for thinking they are from a musical not a rock concert but just like the record the sound was big and full managing to sound very tightly arranged and loose and experimental at the same time! The one thing that the live performance definitely had over the album was the choreography. Every song seemed to have the musicians in a different formation working in a different organic set of movements this was a visual treat and really made the night feel special!


They moved through a number of songs from the album including my favorites: I Am An Ape, Lazarus and I Should Watch TV. They also managed to totally reinvent a few of St. Vincent's solo songs including Cheerleader and Cruel as well as a few crowd pleasers from David Byrne's extensive solo and Talking Heads back catalog. The encore included The Talking Heads track, Burning Down The House which St. Vincent introduced as the song that first introduced her David Byrne as it had featured in the classic 80s film Revenge of the Nerds, needless to say this got people dancing up the isles. This was followed by a beautifully stripped back version of St. Vincent's song The Party and the song that got the whole State Theatre on their feet, the Reality Bites favorite Taking Head's Road the Nowhere.