David Byrne, solo artist and former frontman of Talking Heads, plays at the Olympia Theatre on Tuesday, the 27th of July.
David Byrne was born in Scotland but was brought up in Baltimore in America. He began playing in bands while attending the Rhode Island School of Design and formed The Artistics with fellow students Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth. The band changed their name to Talking Heads and enlisted Jerry Harrison into the group before releasing their debut album, Talking Heads: 77 on Sire Records. On Talking Heads: 77 Byrne introduced his intellectual lyrics and his jerky vocals on brilliant songs like “Psycho Killer” and "No Compassion". Talking Heads became the cult band of the '80s releasing such brilliant albums as Fear Of Music, Speaking In Tongues, Little Creatures, Remain in Light and True Stories and wonderful hit songs like “Once in a Lifetime”, “Burning Down the House”, and “Road to Nowhere”.
Talking Heads broke up in 1991 and Byrne pursued his solo career. Byrne had previously worked with Brian Eno on the 1981 album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, with Robert Wilson for 1985's Music for 'The Knee Plays' and received an Academy Award along with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su for his work on the historical epic, The Last Emperor. His first solo album, Rei Momo was released in 1989 and continued Byrne's fascination with the kind of Latin music he had released on his Luaka Bop record label.
David Byrne followed up his debut with critically acclaimed albums like Uh-Oh, Feelings and Look Into the Eyeball. Last year, Byrne returned to his roots writing music for a movie based in Scotland, Young Adam and recorded the songs with young Scottish musicians from bands like Belle and Sebastian and Mogwai. The songs were released as Lead Us Not into Temptation by the Thrill Jockey label and Byrne folllowed it with his first solo album in three years with Grown Backwards in 2004.
Grown Backwards is possibly one of Byrne's best solo albums with everything from arias by Bizet and Verdi, brilliant compositions like “Grass, Concrete & Stone” and collaboration with Rufus Wainwright and The Tosca Strings.
Time: 8pm
Tickets: €45/€43
Tickets are available from Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.ie
Olympia Theatre
72 Dame St,
Dublin 2.
Tel: + 353 (0) 1 6793323
