When Talking Heads withered away in the late 1980s, not only were the careers of three of David Byrne's colleagues ruined but Byrne himself embarked upon a solo career that never quite lived up to his past. Now, though, he has renewed impetus: while nobody would compare his forthcoming album, Look Into the Eyeball, to his group, it is an almighty step forward and, live at least, he seems finally to be coming to terms with his history, mixing a well-chosen selection of old songs with new material.
What is startling is his appearance. He is dressed as a petrol pump attendant with DAVE (and no David is less "Dave" than Byrne) emblazoned on his workshirt. He is still slender and bug-eyed, with a disturbingly beautiful face. His hair is now grey. It rather becomes him.
There is a strangeness to Byrne. To the audience he plays the bumbling geek, goofily introducing songs. But he undermines his soundman ("really double-check this stuff"), who is doing a fine job. This becomes him less.
But the music is superlative. The unfamiliar fare is unindulgent and bristling with melody. The heartbreakingly beautiful Revolution stands proudly alone and The Accident - "the house where we used to live is destroyed by witnesses" - is a quietly ominous slice of suburban Americana.
Of the Talking Heads revisits, Byrne confesses that the glorious And She Was details an LSD trip; he sings the oft-repeated "same as it ever was" in Once in a Lifetime differently each time and allows the crowd to holler its self-revealing "my God, what have I done?" line with all their might. Wisely, he retains the essential structure of these songs, adding the manic percussion of his Brazilian solo period and, for the closing half of his allotted 60 minutes, a flamboyant string section.
He saves a cheeky surprise for the encore, covering Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) with straight-faced gusto. Byrne's rousing, non-sneering version underlines what a wonderful song it is. While he is not yet quite so loose-limbed to allow it on to an album, maybe the Scottish-born king of New York has a sense of joy after all.
