David Byrne at SPAC: Saratoga 2026

This was the third time I’ve seen David Byrne. The first time was in 1989 when he was promoting his album Rei Momo, shortly after the breakup of Talking Heads, and that time, his show was almost entirely based on his new record. He did one Talking Heads song, despite someone in the audience calling out for him to do “Psycho Killer,” to which he responded, “We’re not doing that today.” The show was actually great. All of the songs, other than the one Talking Heads song, were new to me. But David Byrne is a great performer. His performance was very energetic, and the songs were not like the types of songs you would need to know in order to appreciate.

That said, years later, when I saw him on Broadway doing what he was calling the American Utopia show, where he mixed new music with old, I was very grateful to see that. I did not know that it would be the last Broadway show that I would see because I saw it shortly before the pandemic began, and I’m still not comfortable going to a Broadway show.

So now David Byrne has come to Saratoga (on September 17), where I get to see him outdoors at my last concert of the summer, 2026. It was a magnificent show. It was a show very much like American Utopia, which my wife and I discussed whether or not it was a concert or something else. Well, it wasn’t very different than the show that we saw in Saratoga, except now he’s promoting his new album, Who Is the Sky?, which is a good album. In anticipation of seeing the show, we’ve been listening to it. It’s good, and it helps to become a little bit more familiar with the music. You know, I just said that wasn’t necessary for Rei Momo.

But David Byrne these days sounds pretty much exactly like he sounded 40 years ago, at least based on my recollection of that one concert and multiple Talking Heads albums. That’s good. His persona is less aloof than it was. To the point about the pandemic, he discussed it. He did a song called “My Apartment Is My Friend,” where he showed images of where he lives now in New York, where he lived by himself during the lockdown. This was a kind of intimacy that I think the David Byrne of the past assiduously tried to avoid. This version of David Byrne was more conversational and also more willing to give the audience an aspect of what they want.

Before the show, I was thinking, is David Byrne on the level of the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, or Bowie himself? A culture-influencing musician? I think that he is. I say that here because when I’ve had the opportunity to see the Rolling Stones, I often think to myself, “This is Mick Jagger singing ‘Get Off of My Cloud’ to me. This is my moment, my song, and it’s special.” And even when the Rolling Stones are doing songs that are more than half a century old, I feel that is a special moment. And I felt that way seeing David Byrne in Saratoga.

There were a few Talking Heads songs that I really wanted to hear him do: “Psycho Killer,” “Life During Wartime,” “This Must Be the Place,” “Once in a Lifetime,” “Burning Down the House.” He did all of them. He had songs that I knew and enjoyed, and several new songs, mostly from his new album, and one of which I think originated from American Utopia. It was a really wonderful mix.

The mix makes it not a greatest-hits show, but at the same time, somebody like Byrne—and there’s not many people like Byrne—almost has an obligation to allow people coming to a show in 2026 to hear him sing the songs that we know him for in the first place. It takes nothing away from the new songs, which, as I mentioned, are good and are worth getting to know over the next 40 years.

The experience was largely positive in the sense that the temperature was still warm enough for us to enjoy being outside. Rain had been falling throughout the day, but it had stopped, so we had a rain-free concert. I made the decision for some reason to get lawn seats, and this was the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at SPAC. So my vantage point was very far from the stage.

The stage was part of the show, so Byrne has very large screens behind him that become his landscape, usually showing scenes of nature. And I think, to some extent, there’s an unspoken theme of the show about beauty. He actually was describing one of his band members’ astrophysics degree and said that at some point she made the decision to use her talents to bring beauty to audiences like us through music. I was really glad to hear David Byrne characterize his music as beauty because it is, and he wasn’t talking about it as some kind of existential contemplation or ecstatic experience. He was describing it as beauty, and it just made me feel good to have permission to just accept and experience this music as beauty, and his walls of images behind him contributed to that.

The other thing that is distinct about this show is that he and his band were not stationed in prescribed spots. They were all walking around for the whole show. Even the percussionists had mobile instruments. Byrne largely simply sang and did not play an instrument, although he picked up a guitar for one song. There is an energy and emotion to his show that is unusual. At whatever age he is, he sounds great, and he clearly has a lot of energy, but he’s not doing the full cardio workout that you could see him do during the Stop Making Sense concert video. But walking around for an entire concert is nonetheless pretty energetic.

So the sound and vision, as it were, combine into an experience that goes beyond just listening to new songs alone. Much of this was projected on large screens as well, so my distance from the stage was mitigated. That said, in retrospect, I would have liked to have been closer.

The other negative about the experience was I have not attended a concert where so many people were smoking in a very, very long time. I’m assuming many of the people smoking were smoking pot, but my wife and I kept moving our lawn chairs to get away from it, and that was annoying, but we essentially were able to dodge the smoke and enjoy the show, so it didn’t ruin it for us.

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Setlist

1. Heaven
2. Everybody Laughs
3. And She Was
4. Strange Overtones
5. Houses in Motion
6. T Shirt
7. (Nothing but) Flowers
8. This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
9. What Is the Reason for It?
10. Like Humans Do
11. When We Are Singing
12. Independence Day
13. Slippery People
14. Moisturizing Thing
15. My Apartment Is My Friend
16. Air
17. Psycho Killer
18. Life During Wartime
19. Once in a Lifetime

Encore
20. Everybody’s Coming to My House
21. Burning Down the House

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(Bowie’s band was Tin Machine. Byrne’s was called Talking Heads)