Talking Heads tribute: Not the same as it ever was (Mass MoCA, 4/28/01)
By Seth Rogovoy

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass., April 29, 2001) - It wasn't the same as it ever was at Mass MoCA on Saturday night, when Vernon Reid led his band through an ad hoc tribute to the Talking Heads and the group's "Remain in Light"-era music. Not that it was Reid's intention to reproduce the feel of a Talking Heads concert or the sound of the group's recordings note-for-note. That would be senseless, if not impossible.

But one did expect that in choosing to revisit the post-punk, new wave group's work 20 years later that Reid and company would have some light to shed, some commentary to offer, perhaps, on what made the Talking Heads such an innovative and influential rock band.

Instead, what Reid and crew offered was for the most part a very competent but ultimately uninspired and unenlightening reenactment of about a dozen songs, including the complete "Remain in Light" program and a few extras from albums recorded before and after "Remain in Light," including "Slippery People" and "Take Me to the River."

Not that "Same As It Ever Was"- a one-time only affair produced by Danny Kapilian - didn't have its memorable moments, and not that it failed to move the audience. Plenty of folks grooved to the recognizable bass lines and the incessant, deep funk of the songs, turning the aisles of the Hunter Performing Arts Center into a downtown nightclub.

The problem was some of what was going down in the aisles was a lot more exciting and entertaining than what was happening on stage. Reid himself was a fervent bandleader and cheerleader, and he fully inhabited the couple of numbers on which he sang lead, particularly "The Great Curve." Unfortunately, his vocals were muffled.

The great disappointment, however, were the three other vocalists. Nona Hendryx, who actually sang on the original "Remain in Light" recording, apparently couldn't be bothered with learning the lyrics to the handful of songs she was assigned for the show. Instead, she mostly relied on lyric sheets, as did fellow vocalist Carl Hancock Rux. As a result, the singers, including Sheryl Marshall, lacked the sort of dynamic focus one can only achieve by singing as if you mean it. You can't mean it if you don't even know what you're singing.

Worse than that, though, Hendryx and Rux just didn't seem comfortable delivering David Byrne's lyrics. In a pre-show interview, Reid himself warned against taking Byrne's lyrics too literally. When Byrne originally sang these songs, the effect was always somewhat surrealistic or dreamlike - the words splashed like images across the backdrop of the band's eerie punk-funk. Hendryx, Rux and Marshall, however, brought a literal approach to their delivery. Hendryx is a great soul belter, and Rux has a gift for the spoken word, but they all lacked a feel for the sort of ambivalence and unintentional irony that gave the songs ballast in Byrne's hands.

As a result, the songs were at cross-purposes with the music. Even with the spectacular lighting effects, which made great use of the sculptural effects of the industrial backdrop, and the juxtaposition of video images alongside the music, what was left was just a mishmash of electronic funk, not that different from what one might hear at a George Clinton concert. The whole point of mid-period Talking Heads, however, was the juxtaposition of Byrne 's naked surrealism against the electronic funk and African rhythms. It is a precise recipe, and once an ingredient is removed, the dough doesn't rise. The jury is still out on whether anyone other than David Byrne can put across the songs of Talking Heads. For the time being, however, the proof rests with those who say it wasn't about David Byrne but about the band. From the evidence on Saturday night, it most certainly was.

[This revieworiginally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on May 1, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]