Is it the same as it ever was?
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I love Byrne. Man, the drummers faking it on the right though were driving me nuts, I know David likes things tightly choreographed, but yikes.
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The “Airport Sushi” skit was quite good, too. A mash up of Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Annie, West Side Story, and the Talking Heads Road to Nowhere! Well worth watching.
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I saw his American Utopia show last month. It was the best thing I have seen in a long, long time. Just incredible. For one thing, his new songs are as good as his old songs. Also, his voice is unchanged, he moved non stop, sang and was never winded in the least. Clearly riding a bike everywhere is a good way to stave off the ravages of time.
Spike Lee filmed the show and will release a concert film of it.
Edited to include the link:
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I was also lucky enough to see American Utopia. I also saw Talking Heads for the Stop Making Sense tour! Loved both of them. Live music is so important to mental health.
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I don’t love all (most) of the artists, but SNL’s musical performances have really up’ed their game this year. Kudos to the musical director. They are getting everyone to do something more like a performance-art piece at least for the first song. I find it really refreshing and interesting.
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If you haven’t heard it yet, you should look up the Blank Check podcast’s episode about Stop Making Sense. I haven’t seen the movie in years, and that episode made me want to drop everything and pop it in.
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The question itself answers that: yes. 
I don’t really see how “used to playing big arenas” would cause a band to sound bad in that setting. I would presume that they are using in-ear monitors, and in the big leagues you have separate boards for front of house and monitor mix, so they’d presumably have the same person (and hardware) building the same monitor mix in their ears that they are accustomed to.
And while a bad IEM mix can definitely throw singers off key, aren’t they playing their own songs, in the key that they ought to be quite accustomed to by now? And haven’t they rehearsed on that stage at least once before Saturday night’s performance?
Have you considered that perhaps Coldplay just sucks?
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A great performance by a talented guy. I used to think David Byrne was a complete douche for breaking up Talking Heads but then I watched Well How Did We Get Here? A Brief History of Talking Heads on YouTube and found out they had been together for 16 years before the break up. That’s a damn good run by anyone’s standards.
Spoiler alert: Tina and Chris did not take it well.
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I haven’t a clue what the deal is, I’m just relating my experience watching the show and seeing big acts with really poor live mixes on SNL. You can hear them off pitch. I assumed it was because they just didn’t give a rats patootie about fine tuning for a smaller venue. Or maybe their sound techs clashed with the show’s? Who’s to say. You very well could be right.
And, yeah, of course they suck!
(Though I did like that song at the time.)
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Thanks, I’ll look that up
I don’t know either, and I know absolutely nothing about how things work at SNL. Which is why I tried to confine myself to generalities. Most of my firsthand experience in that world is in venues only slightly larger than that stage, and I’ve never even worked a gig with separate monitor and FOH mixes. But I have worked plenty of gigs with both truly talented vocalists, and those who can just barely stay on key when going downhill with a tailwind. And even the latter will try to catch themselves when they see the stage crew cringing.
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This tells me that you have never performed music. That’s OK, most people haven’t, but it means you don’t know what you don’t know on this subject.
Music sounds different, and mixes differently, depending on the space it’s performed in. Singers have to adjust HOW they sing if they want to recreate a sound that isn’t natural for the space they’re in but is the affect they want to portray (for example, a beloved song that everyone is used to hearing a certain way).
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Ah, that’s useful info.
But I stand by my above point, that it’s different for the performers, especially singers, than for the technical crew.
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From what I understand, the SNL stage is notoriously bad for bands to play (in terms of sound, etc), which is why many people either use backing tracks or do lip synching, just because it’s easier to deal with.
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I was embarrassed for David. Reminded me of Chevy Chase using his old shtick. I still listen to THDS on the regular. He’s just pandering now.
He’s promoting a show on broadway, which includes his and Talking Heads back catalogue and new songs.
Are you equally embarrassed when the Stones or other bands with a major back catalogue go on tour if they play a single song from that catalogue? Are the only allowed to play new tunes in your view or else they’re just embarrassing?
It was a great performance in my view, but YMMV.
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