Noisegasm: David Byrne + St. Vincent
I’ll admit: I wasn’t totally on board with this collaboration… until I was unexpectedly given 4th row center tickets to see the two at the Orpheum in SF last night. In a word: YES.
David Byrne and St. Vincent killed it. They did songs from their collaborative album, “Love This Giant” (and even one from “Here Lies Love”) not to mention a handful of crowd-pleasers like This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) and Road to Nowhere. The performance involved an 8-piece brass band and (can I just say?) some fabulously quirky choreography. Consider me sold.
</aI’d seen both artists before. St. Vincent dropped off my radar for awhile, but I actually prefer her more… “glamorous” identity these days, compared to when I saw her in a douche-bar in Santa Barbara (Velvet Jones, anyone?) in 2007. I saw Byrne in 2008, but this performance was more reminiscent of his concert with Arcade Fire at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005, which was similarly brassy, march-y, and generally triumphant. (Side note: I feel super-grateful that 18-year-old me got to see Byrne perform Crazy in Love.)
Here’s the video for their song Who off of their album “Love This Giant”:
Ribbon Around A Bomb 