From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V8 #107 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Monday, August 30 2004 Volume 08 : Number 107 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- David Byrne ["Ron Rosen" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 08:07:31 -0700 From: "Ron Rosen" Subject: David Byrne I saw David Byrne last night at the new Disney Concert Hall in LA. The hall is the home of the LA Philharmonic. It's known for its unique lines and incredible acoustics. Seating surrounds the stage on all sides. Frank Gehry, the architect, better get down there this morning and tighten up some screws, because I'm sure he never thought the place would rock the way it did last night!! Everybody up and dancing. I was on one of the side terraces, and I became concerned that maybe it wasn't designed to hold people who were bouncing!! When Byrne came out, he started to say, "This is the first time..." And I'm sure he was going to say this was the first time a rock concert was being held in Disney Hall, but before he could get past, "This is the first time..." someone yelled out, "They've had a real band!" The audience went wild with applause and laughter. When it finally died down, Byrne said, tongue in cheek, "Yes, that's what I was going to say, ' This is the first time they've had a real band.' (Because of the great acoustics, if someone yells out something from anywhere in the hall, you can hear it. At one point Byrne was singing at the end of a song and continued singing as he backed away from the mic several feet. In most halls the sound would taper off, but at Disney, you really couldn't tell by the sound that he backed away from the mic. Anyway, the show was great. Great sound. Great arrangements. Byrne on various guitars was backed by a string section - two cellos and four violins. Often they played interesting intros and outros to the songs. Also there was a bass player and two percussionists, one of whom occasionally played a keyboard. The bass was way down in the mix, and most of the time I couldn't hear it. The grey-haired Byrne sings great and moves great, with his unusual little bounces, wiggles, and faux running. He was constantly dancing around and having to avoid his guitar cords, so I wondered why he was even using guitar cords. Just as I was wondering that, he backed up and tripped over a bunch of accessory cords, landing on his back but quickly making it seem intended. Luckily, they had put carpet down on the stage. Later I realized that Byrne was not using monitors, but had cordless headphones with a belt-pack instead of monitors. It dawned on me that perhaps if you're using cordless headphones to receive the p.a., you would not also be able to use cordless guitars because you'd be trying to pick up two radio signals at the same time. Maybe some of you electronics people can confirm this. He did a lot of Talking Heads stuff and a lot of other stuff. Not having followed Talking Heads that closely, I only recognized a few songs, but they all sounded great. Lots of Latin-influenced rhythms. If you are able to catch David Byrne's show in your area, I recommend it. And a special thanks to Ariel - the seats were great, on the side and directly in line with Byrne. HELP! owner-believers@smoe.org Send mail to believers@smoe.org Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at World Cafe CDs http://worldcafecds.com ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V8 #107 ******************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- -------------------------- This has been a posting from the Susan Werner believers-digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the message