David Byrne's American Utopia: Review

To completely understand David Byrne is like trying to understand God. Sometimes, we have no idea what actions are intentional and which are not. All we know is there is a message in everything you see up on stage.

The American Utopia show on HBO Max is much like Byrne’s most famous concert film, 1984’s Stop Making Sense when Byrne himself led the hit late ‘70s to ‘80s band, The Talking Heads. The 2020 concert film is very similar to the '84 film as it is shot before a live audience where Byrne actively participates with the crowd and vice versa. American Utopia takes place in a Broadway theatre that is filled with a large audience. The show begins in the dark with one spotlight with Byrne at a table examining the model of the human brain. From this spot, he begins singing the song, “Here” to show us the audience where we find our connections. Not only do we, the audience feel invited by Byrne’s presence, but the stage becomes a kind of negative space where chains are used as curtains to momentarily block us out from the real world.

Byrne’s main goal of his show is to make the most out of a complex world by showing simplicity. Byrne accomplishes this by wearing grey monochrome suits, no shoes mind you, and move in synchronous movements which is both easing and stimulating to the eyes and ears through the music being played. Not only does Byrne perform classic Talking Heads hits like, “This Must Be the Place” or “Once in a Lifetime” to fans in the crowd but introduces new discography to experiment in front of the crowd. Songs from Byrne’s 10th studio album, American Utopia find a place into the consciousness of the concert film. Songs like “Everybody’s Coming to My House” and “Everyday is a Miracle,” sound as though they were designed to resonate Byrne’s own personal hopes, wants, and desires within today’s ever-busy, fast-moving world.

While Byrne’s message is both part-time dance party, but within that party, there are moments when Byrne grounds his audience is the issues of the day. The American Utopia concert film was performed during 2020 to a COVID-19 free audience, but the racial and political events of 2020seeped into the performance. “Hell You Talmbout,” an original song written by Janelle Monae provides an excellent example. The song itself was created in 2015 to express the anguish of Black Americans being treated by police. This song had a stronger presence thought during the Black Lives Matter protest across the nation after the killing of George Floyd. Not only does this song memorialize him, but it does the same for other Black Americans who died tragically at the hands of police brutality. Byrne and his crew sing the song not only by marching on stage but do so by a loud pounding of the drums every time a new name is mentioned. With each beating of the drum, the vibration resonates throughout the theater into the ears of the audience members.

In a sense, David Byrne brings the rest of the world to his secluded Broadway stage in New York by having a diverse band of multiple nationalities. From guitarists based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to drum players that hail from Santa Caterina, Brazil or Paris, France, Byrne continues to drill the message into our brains that we are all connected as one world community. The nonsense song “I Zimbra” only reiterates that there is no need for any existing language for audience members to connect to each other.

To wrap the concert, the chain curtain is finally lifted and David Byrne and his company send the audience within the theatre off to the marching tune of the classic Talking Head’s hit song, “Road to Nowhere”. As Byrne and his band march along the aisles of the theatre, he sends the reassuring message that we all are indeed on a road to nowhere and we as the listener must enjoy the good and begrudgingly accept the bad parts of life.

“David Byrne’s American Utopia” is not only the one concert that sends the perfect message of how we are all one and the same no matter which cultural background we come from, but it also expresses the need of confrontation with the actions our ancestors have done in the past. This was the key concert film for watching during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it brings old and new fans of the Talking Heads and David Byrne to relish and enlighten themselves in Byrne’s eccentric personality and enigmatic messages that become clear to all at the end of the show.