FogBlueInSanFran
Well-Known Member
This won’t take long (for me).
I intimated this before, but to me this isn’t just a live record — it’s a greatest hits record because it captures this band’s best music — on the “Speaking In Tongues” tour, at their artiest and yet at their most comfortable song-wise. Unlike nearly every other person in the universe, I thought “Little Creatures” — the record which came after this — was an awful disappointment, despite all the best-selling hits it produced, and “True Stories” and “Naked” were flat-out bad.
Now it is hard to separate this from the film — many of you will have the same issue here that I had with @Saddleworth2 ‘s selection of Kate Bush’s Before The Dawn, which he was lucky enough to see, and the where the visuals worked with the music. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s hard to appreciate the cleverness of building the band up one song at a time (first Byrne and a tape recorder, next Byrne and Weymouth, then adding Frantz, then Harrison and so on until all nine musicians are playing). It’s hard to capture the whimsy of the Big Suit or Byrne jerking around the stage. So all you have is the music.
But IMO if you want to know about TH, this is an awful lot of this band’s best tunes. Yes, I miss “Born Under Punches” and “I Zimbra” (included on one of the extended versions of the film I think) among others. But we’ve got a very credible selection across all their records, and these aren’t clones of the studio stuff — live, Byrne emotes more, and with the extra musicians everything is dancier and funkier.
In college I think I saw this film six times. When the videotape of it came out, I recorded it onto an audio cassette. I’ve listened to it over and over for 35+ years. If you haven’t seen the movie, do, but even if you don’t, facts are simple and facts are straight — this is a great band at their peak playing their best songs. 10/10.
I intimated this before, but to me this isn’t just a live record — it’s a greatest hits record because it captures this band’s best music — on the “Speaking In Tongues” tour, at their artiest and yet at their most comfortable song-wise. Unlike nearly every other person in the universe, I thought “Little Creatures” — the record which came after this — was an awful disappointment, despite all the best-selling hits it produced, and “True Stories” and “Naked” were flat-out bad.
Now it is hard to separate this from the film — many of you will have the same issue here that I had with @Saddleworth2 ‘s selection of Kate Bush’s Before The Dawn, which he was lucky enough to see, and the where the visuals worked with the music. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s hard to appreciate the cleverness of building the band up one song at a time (first Byrne and a tape recorder, next Byrne and Weymouth, then adding Frantz, then Harrison and so on until all nine musicians are playing). It’s hard to capture the whimsy of the Big Suit or Byrne jerking around the stage. So all you have is the music.
But IMO if you want to know about TH, this is an awful lot of this band’s best tunes. Yes, I miss “Born Under Punches” and “I Zimbra” (included on one of the extended versions of the film I think) among others. But we’ve got a very credible selection across all their records, and these aren’t clones of the studio stuff — live, Byrne emotes more, and with the extra musicians everything is dancier and funkier.
In college I think I saw this film six times. When the videotape of it came out, I recorded it onto an audio cassette. I’ve listened to it over and over for 35+ years. If you haven’t seen the movie, do, but even if you don’t, facts are simple and facts are straight — this is a great band at their peak playing their best songs. 10/10.