Aug 28: Who is the sky? - coming to cinemas

A cross-posting from my Geography in/on Film blog.

I was very pleased to hear last night that David Byrne's current tour has been filmed. It continues the tradition when Jonathan Demme made 'Stop Making Sense' and Spike Lee filmed his 'American Utopia' tour.

This concert, that I saw in March at the Hammersmith Apollo was the best of the year (so far) and a tremendous visual spectacle.

The film is being made by Brady Corbet: director of 'The Brutalist' and has been shot in 70mm film... this is going to be awesome.

Image: Alan Parkinson

Aug 8: American Utopia.

I went to see this film on Wednesday when it received a special new 4K restoration screening "for one day only" at cinemas around the UK.

This was the film of a 2018 Broadway run of concerts/performances given by David Byrne. It was released in 2020 and directed by Spike Lee.

There were obviously comparisons to be made with the recent "Who is the Sky?" tour, which I saw earlier in the year at the Hammersmith Apollo (and which was excellent...

It was staged more simply with chains as the backdrop, and worked better as a result. There were fewer Talking Heads songs, and alternative choices of music, and different musicians and dancers.

One of the stand out songs was an acapella performance of  'One Fine Day', written with Brian Eno.