My problem with David Byrne's band
OK, so on Friday night, I wrote more about the David Byrne concert than there was space in the paper (my bad), so a paragraph or two was trimmed from the Saturday review, which may have left people wondering, "What the hell was he talking about?"
Late in the review I said that, "Byrne was on his game throughout, which is a good thing because the band, well, could have kicked it harder."
What was missing from the published review was: "Where was the chest-thumping bass on ‘Once in a Lifetime'? Why wasn't the percussionist taking names on ‘Cross-Eyed and Painless'? Why didn't ‘Life During Wartime' feel as urgent as...life during wartime?"
What occurred to me later -- the review had to be in by 11 p.m. so there was no time to think -- was that the musicians sounded and even acted a bit like jazz players. And that's a good thing on some of the more supple and complex songs early in the set. But, for full impact, you really want rockers playing songs like "Life During Wartime."
I looked up bassist Paul Frazier and found that his background seems to be more in the jazz and R&B realm. Same goes for drummer, who lists stints with Aretha Franklin, Liza Minelli, Debarge, Crystal Gayle, Melissa Manchester and Burt Bacharach. Percussionist Mauro Refosco -- who wasn't catching fire like a player in, say, Santana, Paul Simon's band or Rusted Root -- is a member of the Lounge Lizards.
No one was expecting it sound like Talking Heads on the "Remain in Light" tour when they added guitarists Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, two percussionists and bassist Busta Cherry Jones. But these guys didn't rock hard enough.
A little more punch, a little more volume, and it was a Concert Of The Year contender.