When David Byrne last played Dublin in 2018 for the American Utopia tour after that late-career high album, it was an evolving presentation built on obfuscation of traditional stagecraft. Byrne and has 12-piece band roamed the stage without visibility of wires, amplifiers or the traditional signifiers of a live performance.
Returning eight years later for the Who Is The Sky? tour at the 3Arena, the David Byrne travelling show has evolved again. Present again are a 13-piece band with five backing singers, three percussionists, two guitarists and a keyboardist, in continuous motion choreography making full use of the stage, and once again, the instruments are mic’d seamlessly and invisibly.
Gone are the grey suits and grey steel-curtained backdrop of the American Utopia tour. Bright blue suits are the uniform of choice tonight. The stage becomes a complete visual space showing ceiling and floor footage shot and made by Byrne himself (alongside video designers JT Rooney and Simon Roberts) largely centred on the life and buildings of New York City. The only exception is ‘Everybody Laughs’ which is accompanied by NY vignette footage shot by awkward documentarian John Wilson.
The dancing is more fluid and somatic than before – and the songs, those on new so-so album Who Is The Sky? are concerned with the things that humans do (and animals too).
The seven songs from the record, made with producer Kid Harpoon and Ghost Train Orchestra, are jovial, inquisitive and interested in the human condition – on record they are child-like in their wonder (which is a turnoff for me personally) – but live the songs are just the right side of cheesy uplift – ‘Everybody Laughs’, ‘I Met The Buddha At A Downtown Party’, ‘Like Humans Do’, ‘Independence Day’ and even the barely-tolerable on-record ‘My Apartment Is My Friend’ become dazzling opportunities to see inside Byrne’s self-identifying non-neurotypical mind.
It’s clear from Byrne’s between-song explanations that the album was written mostly during the pandemic and as such are marked by that time of indelible social isolation – so I should probably be less harsh on ‘My Apartment Is My Friend’.
David Byrne does relate some of those songs to what’s happening now – reframing a John Cameron Mitchell quote – “love and kindness are the most punk things you can do,” as an act of radical resistance in the face of fascism and MAGA (“Make America Gay Again” on screen gets a cheer during recent Brian Eno-collaboration ‘T-Shirt’).
Byrne’s solo material is no slouch overall but of course, it’s the Talking Heads songs that resonate the most – classics of rock and pop of the last 50 years – the arrangements on the Who Is The Sky? tour offer taut arrangements to match the live show’s graceful propulsive movement – ‘And She Was’, ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘Burning Down the House’, ‘Heaven’ ‘This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)’, ‘Houses in Motion’, ‘Psycho Killer’ (playing a version originally arranged by Arthur Russell) all had that communal magic quality that is part of the fabric of modern modern music that Byrne and his legacy band has given us.
An alternative stripped arrangement of ‘Everybody’s Coming to My House’ from American Utopia gently soars and a sprightly version of the 1979 song and Stop Making Sense classic ‘Life During Wartime’ further connected these songs to modern day civil unrest with footage of ICE raids in US cities underscoring the song’s anxious dystopia.
And that is Byrne’s modus operandi – you never get the sense of a man playing out the hits. David Byrne does not go through the motions – there’s always a new angle or shade to explore, always a thing happening in our current moment that these old songs speak to.
We can only hope to be as inquisitive and interested in life as David Byrne when we ourselves, turn 73. And as unproblematic. Byrne is still asking what’s possible, what makes us move, what makes us human and how we can do better.
David Byrne is back in Dublin in St. Anne’s Park this summer on June 7th. Do. not. miss. He doesn’t.
David Byrne – 3Arena, Dublin – 14 March 2026 setlist
- Heaven (Talking Heads) , Fear Of Music)
- Everybody Laughs (Solo – Who Is The Sky?)
- And She Was (Talking Heads, Little Creatures)
- Strange Overtones (Brian Eno & David Byrne)
- Houses in Motion (Talking Heads, Remain In Light)
- T Shirt (Brian Eno & David Byrne, 2025 single)
- (Nothing But) Flowers (Talking Heads, Naked)
- This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Talking Heads, Speaking In Tongues)
- What Is the Reason for It? (Solo – Who Is The Sky?)
- Like Humans Do (Solo – Who Is The Sky?)
- When We Are Singing (Solo – Who Is The Sky?)
- Independence Day (Solo – Who Is The Sky?)
- Slippery People (Talking Heads, Speaking In Tongues)
- I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party (Solo – Who Is The Sky?)
- My Apartment Is My Friend (Solo – Who Is The Sky?)
- Air (Talking Heads, Fear Of Music)
- Psycho Killer (Talking Heads, 77)
- Life During Wartime (Talking Heads, Fear Of Music)
- Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads, Remain In Light)
Encore:
20. Everybody’s Coming to My House (Solo – American Utopia)
21. Burning Down The House (Talking Heads, Speaking In Tongues)
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
