David Byrne: Still Dancing, Essential as Ever

Ben Preece
Jan 18
4 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

At 73, David Byrne is no oldies act, and the challenge still seems to be the point. He returns to Australia for the first time since 2018 with a show that prioritises movement, precision, and risk over comfort or nostalgia — and carries, improbably but insistently, a whole lot of hope for the human race.

LIVE REVIEW: DAVID BYRNE

BRISBANE ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE | SATURDAY, 17TH JANUARY 2026

📸 Ash Sekulich (@ash_jms)

It’s only January and we may already have the gig of the year. But calling what David Byrne delivers tonight a mere “gig” feels reductive. If music is therapy, and let’s be honest, for many of us it is, then Byrne administers something closer to sonic benzos. He smooths the edges. He names the feeling. He locates the wiring fault and gives it a groove that calms the nervous system, stops it from catastrophising, and coaxes the shoulders into motion instead. This is a perfectly paced show built on humanity, hope, and the simple, radical pleasure of dancing together.

Dressed head to toe in orange, Byrne looks either like an escaped prisoner or a council worker mid-shift. Hard to say. But he has always loved a uniform, and ever since 1984’s Stop Making Sense, he has favoured choreographed order, an uncluttered stage, and a sense of movement that feels both playful and purposeful. His book How Music Works offers a useful decoder for his singular brain, and it’s hard not to watch tonight’s show through that lens.

He opens with ‘Heaven’, flanked by just three band members: Ray Suen on violin (later guitar), Kely Pinheiro on cello (later bass), and Daniel Mintseris, wearing a synthesiser around his waist like a toolbelt. Once perhaps underrated on 1979’s Fear Of Music, ‘Heaven’ now lands with dishevelled beauty, floating and expansive, setting the tone for everything to come.

The concept reveals itself early, but never grows stale. The band files onstage in stages, all in orange, more parade than rock outfit. The visuals function as an interactive character of their own: a view of Earth from space, cornfields, the poetry of t-shirt slogans, the interior of Byrne’s apartment, and, eventually, political violence in the United States. Sometimes the screens label the performers by name, sometimes they provoke, sometimes they simply drift alongside the music.

The setlist is an embarrassment of riches, a generous smorgasbord for longtime fans and newcomers alike. Somewhere in Byrne’s vast catalogue, everyone here has found their doorway in.

‘Everybody Laughs’, from his 2025 album Who Is The Sky?, ushers in more band members, but by the time ‘And She Was’ arrives, all twelve are onstage — dancing, singing, and dragging heavy instruments across the floor like an overcaffeinated Sunday Session with choreography. That this much sound is coming from bodies in constant motion feels almost impossible. Special mention must go to the keyboard and drum players, whose jobs appear the most physically punishing, yet whose precision never falters.

What unfolds from here is a full-bodied Saturday night dance party, wholesome and joyous, fuelled by Byrne’s open-hearted energy. His warmth is genuine, his concern for neighbours, strangers, and the planet sincere. He speaks often of lockdown, and it’s clear the experience left a mark. His onstage diatribes are gentle but firm: don’t judge your fellow humans, look after each other, try to care.

The set draws deeply from across his career: no fewer than ten Talking Heads songs, a Paramore cover, two from his 2008 collaboration with Brian Eno, and key moments from his solo work. Deepish cuts like ‘Houses In Motion’ and ‘(Nothing But) Flowers’ sit comfortably alongside ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’, which, under a wash of bright lights, reduces the Entertainment Centre to something approaching intimacy. Not a dry eye in the house.

Visuals place Byrne deep in the woods for this one, downtown NYC for ‘I Met The Buddha At A Downtown Party’ and isolated at home for ‘My Apartment Is My Friend’ during which we get a full tour. Between songs, his dry humour and twitchy, childlike energy remain endearing. His vulnerability still surprises.

Darkness descends for ‘Psycho Killer’, staged against a stark red backdrop, with Pinheiro’s cello taking the lead and commanding the room. The political thread running quietly throughout the show snaps into focus during ‘Life During Wartime’. Footage of ICE squads and New York police confronting protesters fills the screens as Byrne sings, “The sound of gunfire off in the distance / I’m getting used to it now.” It lands harder than ever.

This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco. It's real and feels terrifying.

There is, at least, time for dancing and tenderness before the end, a stretch where the show’s gentleness is allowed to breathe without losing its grip on the room. Then ‘Burning Down The House’ arrives as the closer and detonates everything into motion: bodies ricocheting, grins turning feral, the band still somehow locked to the choreography while the whole venue threatens to tip over into pure release. It’s joy, yes, but it’s joy with teeth. A reminder to watch out. You might get what you’re after.

What a wonderful, encapsulating show. We leave feeling lighter, no doubt. David Byrne has remained one of the most electrifying performers of the past 50 years, singing, playing, and moving through almost every moment of a two-hour set with an endurance at 73 that would challenge performers in their twenties. The show is spectacular, but the spectacle isn’t scale, volume, or access, and it’s certainly not nostalgia. It’s the slow, deliberate incineration of the American dream, set to rhythm, hope, and a groove that insists we keep moving anyway. Seeing him live remains essential, not for the memories it revisits, but for the future it insists on imagining.