Sighs, Both Wistful and Disgusted. Also, Please Listen To The Song At The End of the Post and Tell Me I'm Not Losing My Mind.

Yesterday afternoon, I found out about a free concert in Brooklyn being played by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame, as well as a great solo artist). Logically, I had to make the trek. Obviously, about 10,000 other people had the same idea.

And so I went with my friend Val to Prospect Park to check it out. Thinking that we would get there early, we got to the park at 6 for what we thought was a 6:30 show. I can't even begin to tell you how wrong we were about this, which we realized immediately after we arrived.

It was packed. Of course it was packed. David Byrne has been making music for over 30 years, and he has an enormous fanbase. In addition, it was a free show, in a park, on a nice day. We really should have thought about these things even a little bit before we decided to arrive at 6.

And so, after hanging out in the park for something like two and a half hours in line, we got into the bandshell at 8:30... which is when they promptly started the concert. Apparently, only 6500 of the people in line got in, and the rest got to watch it outside. I can't speak for Val (or our other friends who showed up, wandered around lost in the park for about an hour, then met us in line with about 45 minutes to spare), but I feel like it was worth it.



That picture is from last September, but it was the same basic idea: Byrne, his backing band, his backup singers, and dancers, all in white. And look at that suit. If I spent my days walking around in a white suit, would people respect me more or less?

Anyway, Byrne played a lot of songs from his albums with Brian Eno, which was to be expected: After all, this was another stop on the "Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour." Everything was pretty well-received, but he really brought the house down (I'm trying so hard not to make a "Burning Down the House" reference) when his band played some old Talking Heads songs, They sounded absolutely unbelievable, which is nice, because I feel like more often than not classic rock artists have some sort of falling off when they play shows thirty years later.

To put things into perspective, when I was in high school, I went to a "Battle of the Bands." the band that won did a rendition of a song that I later learned was "Crosseyed and Painless," and after hearing it, I went and got Remain in Light soon after. Yesterday, after actually hearing David Byrne play it, I wanted to go and actually get David Byrne. Not an album, not a discography, the person.

Anyway, the wistful sighs come from the show. The disgusted ones come from this, the song I mentioned in the title of this post.

Dear readers, I admit: I read Pitchfork. It's probably not the best thing, but I do read it daily. Generally, though it's admittedly pretentious, I tend to agree with them on a lot of things. This, however, is not one of them. There's nothing intelligent about this song. There's nothing good about it, short of a 30-second instrumental portion pretty early on. There's no statement that's being made. What makes that good and this (see below) bad?



Pitchfork trashed it, despite the fact that Scroobius Pip actually had something to say. I don't get it.

Unrelated news: I actually might eat lunch at a commmmmmmbination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Not kidding. More on that at a later date.

In the meantime, I'm off. Be sure to follow Kristina's Twitter for stuff from Bonnaroo, and enclosed in the playlist are some Talking Heads jams.

Love,
Jim