Talking Heads
Live at The Forum, Billerica, USA
October 2, 1983
"Stop Making Sense/Big Suit" Tour
Recording quality : B (audience)
Setlist :
00:00:00 - Psycho Killer
00:05:56 - Heaven
00:12:35 - Love To Building On Fire
00:16:06 - The Book I Read
00:21:04 - Slippery People
00:26:44 - Cities
00:31:37 - Big Blue Plymouth
00:36:58 - Jerry's Annoucement
00:38:43 - David's Annoucement
00:39:21 - Burning Down The House
00:43:28 - Making Flippy Floppy
00:49:12 - Swamp
00:55:03 - What A Day That Was
01:01:51 - Naive Melody
01:07:32 - Once In A Lifetime
01:13:31 - Big Business
01:18:47 - I Zimbra
01:22:20 - Houses In Motion
01:29:35 - Genius Of Love
01:36:30 - Girlfriend Is Better
01:42:05 - Take Me To The River
01:50:26 - Life During Wartime
Notes :
This is a so-so recording of an awesome gig.
Get this : during the first set of the concert, the generator burns down, leaving the band to perform without any lights. Cutting their first set short by two songs, Jerry speaks to the audience about the problem. It's weird to hear Jerry speaking so laidback about it, even dropping F-bombs and telling everybody to get drunk. Then, after a short break, David speaks up and announce that everybody could get a dollar back on their ticket (what a bargain). It must've been so frustrating for David to perform this big Robert Wilson-esque show without the lights...
Anyway, with or without lights, the show must go on. But the troubles don't stop there... A little while after the break, Chris gets confused and start blasting the "What A Day That Was" beat while the rest of the band is trying to perform "Swamp"...
That's right folks, even while you're at the top of the hip, shit happens. It's great to hear how such a tight band like Talking Heads could still do with what they had and deliver a storming set to a crazy audience. The band had to cut short their first set and had to start the second set with "Burning Down The House" (the perfect fit, it seems, after the "burning" news). Rumours has it they wanted to perform "Pull Up The Roots" that night for the encore, but instead they replaced it with "Life During Wartime", the usual first set closer. If you get pass the average recording quality, it's still a very great bootleg with a little twist on the usual Big Suit-era shows.
Talking Heads (1983) were :
David Byrne - vocals, guitar, keyboards
Chris Frantz - drum, backing vocals
Jerry Harrison - keyboards, guitar, backing vocals
Tina Weymouth - bass, keyboards, vocals
+
Edna Holt : backing vocals
Lynn Mabry : backing vocals
Steve Scales : percussions
Alex Weir : guitar
Bernie Worell : keyboards & funk witchcraft
Picture by Richard E.Aaron