Tuesday 31/03/09 David Byrne @ Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Does genius come in tutus? David Byrne - frontiersman, pop polymath, a maverick, an unassuming legend, and for this evening he's back in his birth city on this year of the Homecoming. Byrne's latest album, 'Everything That Happens Will Happen Today', reprises a creative partnership with Brian Eno, their first in 30 years - an album of folk-electronic-gospel. Each artist worked from their own corners - Byrne on vocals and lyrics, Eno on music and arrangement. That is, Eno had a large number of instrumental tracks which Byrne took away and wrote lyrics for. The results 'emerged', ta dar!! Medicine for darkened times, indeed!

Any latecomers may construe they are witnessing the end of the show given the levels of applause. With David Byrne and his band decked out in pure white garb, it's a classy sartorial look of white shirt, slacks, braces and oxfords (like a Cambridge punter). It's a cartwheel of emotion on display, starting with a gratitude of greeting and appreciation that runs amok with adulation and a desire to embrace the artist in collective arms. Things do simmer down allowing for Byrne to introduce tonight's show amongst the heckles. The show is about the recording history of David Byrne with Brian Eno, the old stuff that began on Talking Heads 'More Songs About Buildings And Food', then 'Fear Of Music' and the inestimable 'Remain In Light', and was reprised for their latest album ETHWHT. "Then there's a big gap in the middle, which for the most part we're ignoring" Byrne intones, a reference to the landmark recording, 'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts', an album that would send popular music and sample culture helter-skelter.

Opening the show with 'Strange Overtones', a sultry groove from ETHWHT, it's a self-referential piece with humorous asides - "...this groove is out of fashion, these beats are 20 years old...strange overtones, in the music that you're playing...", and launches into the fractured, kinetic 'I Zimbra' which introduces the three dancers who are to provide a pivotal spectacle with post-modern choreography every bit as invigorating as that of Twyla Tharp's work for 'Stop Making Sense'. It's a galvanizing moment followed by the alt-gospel slo-mo of 'One Fine Day', while 'Help Me Somebody' has Byrne introduce the song - "Many years ago Brian Eno and I did an album of 'found' vocals, what became sample music", only he's cut short by boisterous heckles to get to the point.

'Houses in Motion' lifts the lid on a boiling pot with the dancers pushing/pulling DB towards the mic, slipping through his legs as he sings his dadaist lyrics on what proves the hottest moment so far, an ultra funky staccato beat that has the three backing singers down with the choreography. The alt-country 'My Big Nurse' waltzes in with DB stretching his notes and completing the circles that this performance denotes - "...when the road we're traveling on, takes us back where we came from...". 'Heaven', like all the old stuff is getting the big buzzin' applause, while the sweet 'The River' and 'Life Is Long' bookend with the new numbers, the latter with the dancers and DB sat in swivel chairs doing a routine.