How David Byrne's amazing Edinburgh performance debunked the myth of youth – Janet Christie
Janet Christie argues that musicians should do their very best to get old before they die
I watched David Byrne sing, dance, stride the stage surrounded by his musicians, singers and dancers for two hours straight in Edinburgh this week and was glad that I was seeing him, for the first time, now that he’s 74 years old.
Starting with an announcement from the man himself that dancing was permitted, the scene was set for a celebration of the Scots-Canadian’s lifetime mastery of blending music, performance, art and technology as the performers became one with the moving backdrop of walls and floor in a mesmerising musical spectacle that had everyone on their feet by the time Burning Down The House brought down the house.
Hearing classics like Heaven, Once In A Lifetime and Psycho Killer decades on delivers an extra punch by virtue of being sung by someone who has lived a life. With a voice as as strong as ever, he also performed recent releases such as last year’s My Apartment is My Friend. We were transported to his New York home on the giant screens, the scene of his solitude during Covid, which prompted him to tell a story about venturing out and being stopped in his tracks by an unfamiliar sound – people talking.
The Specials, the Boss and the Godmother of Punk
From the very back row up in the balcony where we could dance like no one was behind us, because they weren’t, we had the best view to get the full effect of the choreography, lighting and videos that summed up the inclusivity of his ethos.
Byrne’s Covid reference chimed with my post-pandemic desire to seize the day and see the musicians I’d always wanted to see, spurred on when my offspring announce they have tickets to see ’my’ bands.
It started with The Specials in 2021, led by singer Terry Hall, then 62, an exuberant, celebratory performance years after I first loved their ska blend of reggae, punk and politics. It’s a gleeful experience to join in Too Much Too Young alongside your kids and realise you are ‘having fun’ like they said we should be back in the 1980s. It was the same watching a 73-year-old Bruce Springsteen smash a 28-song, three-hour Bossathon in Hyde Park in 2023.
And, as for the Godmother of Punk, Patti Smith in Oxford – booked during a surge of lockdown ‘if we ever get through this’ sentiment – was a woman at the top of her game at 77, as she reprised Horses and paid tribute to Tom Verlaine. She was proof that age, experience and a life lived, with all its downs as well as ups only adds an extra timbre of time, a vulnerability and strength, to a voice and performance that youth, for all its vitality and vigour, has not yet acquired.
To paraphrase and contradict Roger Daltrey who sang “I hope I die before I get old” and didn’t – he’s currently on a US solo tour – musicians should do their very best to get old before they die – because it’s true, the best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.
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