Talking Heads’ Live In Rome captured a mesmerizing onstage chemistry

Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads‘ 1984 concert film that captures the group performing in Los Angeles during their 1983 Speaking in Tongues tour, begins with only David Byrne. A camera focused on his shoes follows him as he walks from backstage toward the crowd, placing a boombox onstage. “I have a tape I’d like to play,” he says, before starting up a solo performance of “Psycho Killer” on an acoustic guitar, backed by drum-machine playback. Over the course of the next three songs, his three bandmates join him, one at a time: Tina Weymouth on “Heaven,” Chris Frantz on “Thank You For Sending Me an Angel,” and finally Jerry Harrison on “Found A Job.” It’s an extended rise for a celebrated piece of musical performance as cinema, an act of theatricality that helped cement Talking Heads as one of the greatest bands of the new wave era, and even more than that, one of the greatest bands of all time.

The band’s December 1980 concert in Rome, initially released as In Concerto on Italian TV two months after the release of their legendary Remain In Light, also opens with “Psycho Killer.” But the experience is entirely different; this isn’t so much a staged production framed for the silver screen as it is a proper document of a band at their peak. Byrne doesn’t enter alone—he’s backed by the full lineup of Talking Heads which, at this stage in their history, is an even more sprawling set of musicians that includes guitarist Adrian Belew (who would, the next year, front King Crimson), keyboardist Bernie Worrell, bassist Busta Jones and percussionist Steve Scales along with two backup vocalists, Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. What it perhaps lacks in the cinematic storytelling of its more famous documentary counterpart, this performance of “Psycho Killer” more than makes up for with its dynamic chemistry between all the players in the band and the blazing intensity with which it ramps up in its final couple of minutes. The frantic interplay between Weymouth’s bass grooves, Frantz’s furious drum work and Belew’s squealing solos alone is nothing short of jaw dropping.

For decades, Live In Rome lived in the shadow of Stop Making Sense for perfectly logical reasons: It’s a much rawer production, more lo-fi, staged not so much theatrically but as a great live show, the kind you wish you could have seen firsthand—at least I sure as hell would have. Byrne is less the focal point here than a key part of a dynamic and intricately designed machine, each of its parts working in unison to create something powerful together. There’s no loose-limbed choreography, no giant suit, no cutting a rug with a lamp. (There’s also, unfortunately, no live album counterpart.) The name of this band is Talking Heads, and that’s exactly what you see—an unstoppable musical force, creating something magical and unstoppable together.

Live In Rome might have only been a cult bootleg prior to the mid-2000s when clips from the performance began to show up on a then-new YouTube, and since then the full show has been available to watch in its entirety. (It was officially released on DVD in 2008.) But it’s remarkable to see two versions of the same band just three years apart—each of which could make its case for being Talking Heads at their best. But Live In Rome is alive and electric even with everyday wardrobe and fairly minimal production—Belew is captured jumping with his guitar in slow motion, for instance, which is about as fancy as it gets. Seeing a show like this is the best kind of reminder of the thrill of live music.

Still, there’s nothing minimal about the band’s performance, as is typically the case of any nine-piece band. Given the wider canvas of an expanded lineup, the group allow themselves room to stretch these songs into even more incredible live transformations, whether through the spacey psychedelia of “Drugs,” the ecstatic rhythmic frenzy of “I Zimbra,” or the expanded and otherworldly coda to “Stay Hungry.” With the runway cleared, Talking Heads didn’t hesitate to take flight.

Having a lineup of funk ringers to round out the lineup helps, as does a guitar wizard who understood both polyrhythmic new wave funk and progressive rock alike, but it’s ultimately the core lineup of the band—Byrne, Frantz, Harrison and Weymouth—that ultimately drive and shape these songs. Watching them perform an extended, more sinister version of “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)” or firing on all cylinders on “Crosseyed and Painless,” much as they do in Stop Making Sense. The energy is infectious, and even after more than 40 years, the group’s members hail it as a high point for the group; Frantz told Vulture it was an experience he’d like to relive, and even viewed via video stream well after the fact, the excitement is palpable.

Fifteen minutes into the show, Byrne makes one of his only onstage statements, “I’ll tell you everyone’s name,” introducing everyone in the group, ending on Tina Weymouth’s name without saying his own. The camera doesn’t show who eventually does say “David Byrne!”, possibly Jerry Harrison, possibly Adrian Belew, possibly Chris Frantz, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s not about a star or a frontman or a personality, but the incredible alchemical reaction of a stage full of musicians all in the thrall of a psychic groove.

The Best Show I Saw in July

Back in April, just before I took an unplanned break from this column (life stuff comes up, nothing you can do about it) I introduced a new appendix to In Concert: The best show I saw this month. To which I regret only having done so once. But I’m back on the horse and planning to keep this up for the rest of the year and into next year. Fingers crossed!

Tomb Mold/Horrendous – Canal Club

There’s a funny thing about seeing live music in Richmond: You might not get a chance to see all the weird art bands you like play your city, but you better believe every death metal band is going to come here. (Which is perhaps why I’m not that frustrated about missing Undeath twice—I know there’s an audience here for them.) In fact, I saw Horrendous twice just this year, and it’s only August! The group’s 2023 album Ontological Mysterium made my list of the best metal albums of last year, and they’re an absolute blast to see live. Thrashy, hooky, melodic, just the right amount of prog and with some pretty impressive battle vests for good measure. But this time around, they arrived as part of a double-headlining tour with Tomb Mold, who I last saw five years ago. And this experience was wildly different—opening with “Will of Whispers” from last year’s incredible The Enduring Spirit, the group frontloaded the set with a glimmering oasis of prog metal before eventually working back to some of the harsher moments of 2018’s Manor of Infinite Forms. They’ve truly come to be one of the most uniquely creative death metal bands of the moment, and they have a thrilling live show to match. I hope Richmond never gets tired of death metal.

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