Recently I had backstage passes for David Byrne's My Backwards Life tour at the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco. The set featured classic Talking Heads tunes as well as songs from David’s most recent albums, Grown Backwards Look into the Eyeball, plus some wonderfully random choices like a Jimi Hendrix tune and Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". He also performed Cole Porter's "Don’t Fence Me In" as he did on the "Red Hot and Blue" album.

On stage were the following musicians:

David Byrne – vocals and guitar
Paul Frazier – bass and backup vocals
Mauro Refosco – percussion
Graham Hawthorne - drums
The Tosca Strings from Austin, TX
    Leigh Mahoney: violin
    Tracy Seeger: violin
    Jamie Desautels: violin
    Ames Asbell: viola
    Sara Nelson: cello
    Douglas Harvey: cello

Before the show, I had an opportunity to check out the sound system on a tour led by Kris Umezawa who does live monitor mixes for the tour and has been an integral part of David’s last two tours as well. The entire band uses in-ear monitors, and each band member gets a custom monitor mix. Kris explained that his setup is a little unusual. Each of the performers gets a pre-fader mix of their own sound with a post-fader mix of the rest of the band. This method allows the performers to hear their naked sound, so they can hear any changes they make such as turning on a different guitar pedal or volume change without any mixing effects. Additionally, since Kris’s changes to the mix don’t affect the players’ own sound of their instruments, they won’t feel they need to turn up or play louder when Kris brings down their level in the monitor mix for a particular song.

Kris also mentioned how he uses the monitors to coax David and the backup singers closer to or further away from their microphones. When a singer needs to get closer to the microphone – like when they are singing quietly - Kris will turn down their own voice in their monitors causing them to get closer to the microphone without even realizing they are getting a cue. In this way, Kris makes the house sound engineer’s job easier.

All songs are performed to a click track to lock in the tempo. I know that many bands such as Helmet perform to a click, but some bands don’t even record in the studio to a click. If anyone has any data on what percentage of performers use a click track for recording or live performances, email me.

I also had an opportunity to look at the house soundboard. One notable aspect of the setup is a microphone at the back of the hall plugged into a laptop with a real time frequency analyzer running. I enjoyed hearing about how the base sound in a room is EQ’ed. With the room empty, the sound engineer will transmit pink noise from the speakers on stage. Pink noise has all frequencies at once. The microphone at the back will pick up more or less of the various frequencies. The sound engineer will then EQ the frequencies so that the response is roughly flat, or of equal amounts of all frequencies. Of course, when there are people in the room, the frequency response changes somewhat, but the sound engineer can make additional adjustments at that point.

I was able to watch most of the concert from Kris’s vantage point at the right of the stage with a great view of the performers. Everyone in the band was clearly into the music and having a great time. The string section was making faces at one another, and all performers had plenty of energy and enthusiasm. It was great to see that after so many years of making music that David is still on fire about the process of performing.

Drums and percussion were amazing. Mauro Refosco, the percussionist, had many interesting toys at his disposal. Besides the usual bongos, shakers and congas, Mauro used a talking drum to great effect. The most interesting instrument was called a cymbal tree. The cymbal tree is basically eight drum heads – four on each side – mounted on a cymbal stand. Two levers pulled downwards caused plastic beaters to hit the heads making a wonderful percussion sound. Mauro looked like he was milking a cow when playing this unusual instrument.

I also enjoyed Graham Hawthorne’s drum style. Graham played very much in the pocket with a powerful backbeat. He used traditional grip, which seems to be getting more and more rare for rock drummers. One particular drumbeat stands out for its great sound and for the fact that it’s an excellent independence exercise. Unfortunately my memory is not good enough to recall what song he played it on. Graham, perhaps if you’re reading you can fill us in.

Count:| 1 +a2 + 3 + 4 + |

Hihat:| x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- | played with foot

Tom1: | o-ooo---o---o--- |

Snare:| ----/-------/--- |

Kick: | o-----o---o----- |

At the end of David’s set, the Extra Action Marching Band from Oakland, California joined the band on stage for “Burning Down the House”. The Extra Action Marching Band is a crazy combination of hot pompom girls, goth-bondage flag folk and high energy marching madness. The Boss delay pedal strapped onto and hooked up to the megaphone was an especially nice touch. “Burning Down the House” performed by David, his band, the string section AND a full marching band was truly an awesome experience.

Crappy cell phone camera pictures:
David and Paul
the Tosca strings
David, Paul and strings overlooking the mixing board
David with the marching band on stage
the Extra Action Marching Band on stage

Badly clipped audio:
I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Burning Down the House

After the concert when the crowd was gone, the cleaning crew swept up the plastic drink cups, and an impromptu basketball game broke out complete with basketball and hoop. I hung around with the band and crew where the mood was jovial. In the small world department, I ran into my brother’s ex-girlfriend. She used to play cello with Tosca and is now dating Paul, the bass player.

One of the most notable parts of the entire evening was how the band and crew worked as a team. The group clearly had mutual respect and a great sense of humor. It was enjoyable to watch the interactions both on and off the stage and to watch the crowd’s enjoyment of the process.

(pics, audio and clarifications thanks to Russell Pickett)