The Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour is a 2008–2009 promotional

concert tour A concert tour (or simply tour) is a series of concerts by an artist or group of artists in different cities, countries or locations. Often concert tours are named to differentiate different tours by the same artist and to associate a specific to ...

of music co-written by

David Byrne David Byrne (; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist and filmmaker. He was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of ...

and

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop a ...

with performances by Byrne. In addition to being a retrospective of the duo's collaborations, the tour promoted the album ''

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'' is the second collaborative studio album by David Byrne and Brian Eno, released on August 18, 2008, by Todo Mundo. Marking Byrne's eighth studio effort overall and Byrne a ...

''. The musical performers were accompanied by dancers who were choreographed to several songs. Performances were held across the world and later documented on a tour EP and a

concert film A concert film, or concert movie, is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by either a musician or a stand-up comedian. Early history The ...

Material

Byrne assembled a band to tour for the album, performing music throughout the latter half of 2008 and early 2009 across North America, Europe, and Australasia. He hired more singers than he had on previous tours to reproduce the complex vocal harmonies of the album and was inspired to bring along dancers after seeing

Sufjan Stevens Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nom ...

promote the album ''

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

'' as well as the Japanese films ''

Funky Forest , also known as ''Funky Forest: The First Encounter'' or simply ''Funky Forest'', is a 2005 Japanese surrealist anthology comedy film co-written and co-directed by Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine and Shunichiro Miki. It is composed of several sto ...

'' and ''

The Taste of Tea is the third film by Japanese writer and director Katsuhito Ishii. It has been referred to as a "surreal" version of Ingmar Bergman's ''Fanny and Alexander'' (1982). It was a selection of the Cannes Film Festival. Synopsis The film follows the li ...

''. Byrne was initially uninvolved in the choreography, but made more suggestions as the tour went on and after he saw a live performance by

Deerhoof Deerhoof are an American musical group formed in San Francisco in 1994. They currently consist of founding drummer Greg Saunier, bassist and singer Satomi Matsuzaki, and guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez. Beginning as an improvised no ...

that incorporated dancing with instruments. He began booking tour dates before the album was completed and continued writing his book ''The Bicycle Diaries'' throughout the tour. In planning the set lists for the tour, Byrne initially considered only promoting this album, but decided to assemble songs this album as well as their previous collaborations, including the Talking Heads albums ''

More Songs About Buildings and Food ''More Songs About Buildings and Food'' is the second studio album by American rock band Talking Heads, released on July 14, 1978, by Sire Records. It was the first of three albums produced by collaborator Brian Eno, and saw the band move toward ...

'', ''

Fear of Music ''Fear of Music'' is the third studio album by American rock band Talking Heads, released on August 3, 1979, by Sire Records. It was recorded at locations in New York City during April and May 1979 and was produced by Brian Eno and Talking He ...

'', and ''

Remain in Light ''Remain in Light'' is the fourth studio album by American rock band Talking Heads, released on October 8, 1980 by Sire Records. It was recorded at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas and Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia during July and Augus ...

'' and Byrne's '' The Catherine Wheel'' soundtrack. By playing music from all of their collaborations, Byrne hoped to "draw a line linking this new material with what we did 30 years ago" with the goal of clarifying the connection between all of the duo's previous work. In reviewing the music, he found that " ere might be more continuity than I imagined, which I hope is going to work in my favor." Although he was invited to participate and early reports indicated that would, Eno chose to not tour, letting Byrne decide how to present this music live. A month after releasing the album, Byrne was skeptical of market saturation, claiming "I sense that a lot of people don't know we have a record out" and hoped to counterbalance that ignorance with this tour. At the same time, the main goal of the performance was not promotion but the show itself.

Set lists

The set list for the first night: ;Set #" Strange Overtones" (originally from ''

'') #"

I Zimbra "I Zimbra" is a song by American new wave band Talking Heads, released as the second single from their 1979 album ''Fear of Music''. According to Sytze Steenstra in ''Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Prese ...

" (''

'') #"One Fine Day" (''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') #"Help Me Somebody" ('' My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'') #"Houses in Motion" (''

'') #"My Big Nurse" (''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') #"My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks)" ('' The Catherine Wheel'') #"

Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

" (''Fear of Music'') #"Home" (''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') #"The River" (''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') #"Crosseyed and Painless" (''Remain in Light'') #"Life Is Long" (''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') #" Once In a Lifetime" (''Remain in Light'') #" Life During Wartime" (''Fear of Music'') #"I Feel My Stuff" (''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') ;Encore #

" Take Me to the River" (''

'') #"The Great Curve" (''Remain in Light'') ;Second encore #

"Everything That Happens" (''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') By the time he reached St. Louis in mid-October, the following set was played: ;Set #" Strange Overtones" #"

" #"One Fine Day" #"Help Me Somebody" #"Houses in Motion" #"My Big Nurse" #"My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks)" #"

" #"Never Thought" (originally from the deluxe edition of ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'') #"The River" #"Crosseyed and Painless" #"Life Is Long" #" Once In a Lifetime" #" Life During Wartime" #"I Feel My Stuff" ;Encore #

" Take Me to the River" #"The Great Curve" ;Second encore #

"Air" (''Fear of Music'') #" Burning Down the House" (''Speaking in Tongues'') #"Everything That Happens" Midway through this leg, Byrne expanded some shows to have three encores, such as Omaha, Indianapolis, Toronto, and Raleigh. The first was as listed above, the second was "Don't Worry About the Government" and "Burning Down the House", and the third was "Everything That Happens". He also played this extended encore at the

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

and Sydney shows. Byrne expanded his February 28, 2009, show to contain four two-song encores.

Musicians and technical personnel

Performers

Byrne has assembled the following musicians and dancers to accompany him: *

–

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

Mark De Gli Antoni Mark degli Antoni (sometimes credited as Mark De Gli Antoni) is an American composer, known for his work as co-founder and keyboard sampler for the band Soul Coughing from 1992 to 2000.Huey, Steve.Soul Coughing - Biography, AllMusic.com. Since le ...

– keyboards *Paul Frazier –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

*Graham Hawthorne –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

Mauro Refosco Mauro Refosco is a Brazilian percussionist. He is best known for working with singer David Byrne and as the former touring and session percussionist for the American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. He is a member of the experimental supergroup ...

–

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*Redray Frazier –

background vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...

* Kaïssa – background vocals *Jenni Muldaur – background vocals * Lily Baldwin – dancing *Natalie Kuhn – dancing *Steven Reker – dancing Refosco previously toured with Byrne's My Backwards Life band in support of ''

Grown Backwards ''Grown Backwards'' is the seventh studio album by musician David Byrne, released on March 16, 2004. Reception . In 2010, Byrne claimed in his book '' How Music Works'' it has sold 127,000 physical albums, 8,000 digital albums and 53,000 dig ...

''; like bassist Paul Frazier he also appears on ''

Look into the Eyeball ''Look into the Eyeball'' is the sixth studio album by musician David Byrne, released on May 8, 2001. The single "Like Humans Do" was supplied with the Windows XP operating system to showcase Microsoft's Windows Media Player. "" is a Spanish la ...

'', ''Grown Backwards'', '' Live from Austin, Texas'', and ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today''. The performers started rehearsals the day that the album was released and continued to rehearse more for this tour than is typical for other Byrne presentations. All performers dress alike in cream-colored jumpsuits and overalls. The dancers have choreographed for seven songs and the entire ensemble performed together for the first time on September 9.

Technical crew

*Mark Edwards –

production manager In the cinema of the United States, a unit production manager (UPM) is the Directors Guild of America–approved title for the top below-the-line staff position, responsible for the administration of a feature film or television production. Non ...

*Keith Anderson –

tour manager A tour manager (or concert tour manager) is the person who helps to organize the administration for a schedule of appearances of a musical group (band) or artist at a sequence of venues (a concert tour). In general, road managers handle tour deta ...

*Bruce Knight –

Front of House In the performing arts, front of house (FOH) is the part of a performance venue that is open to the public. In theatres and live music venues, it consists of the auditorium and foyers, as opposed to the stage and backstage areas. In a theatre, ...

*Mike Lafferty – stage and keyboard technician *Victor Muñoz – guitar technician *Don FitzSimmonds – drum technician *Jeremy Bolton and Michael Conners – PA technicians *Bob Lewis – monitors *Jon Pollak –

lighting designer In theatre, a lighting designer (or LD) works with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create the lighting, atmosphere, and time of day for the production in response to the text while keeping ...

/ director *Martin Garnish – lighting *Abi Lester – wardrobe The equipment was engineered by Clair Global and included gear from

Lab.gruppen Lab Gruppen (stylized as Lab.Gruppen) is a Swedish sound equipment company, based in Kungsbacka, Sweden, dedicated to building mainly public address power amplifiers. Lab Gruppen is part of the Music Tribe group of brands. As of 2007 the company ...

, TC Electronic, and Yamaha.

Choreographers

* Noémie Lafrance * Annie-B Parson *Sonya Robbins and Layla Childs aka Robbinschilds Dance

Supporting acts

There were only a handful of dates that included other performers and no opening act was scheduled throughout the tour.

Ani DiFranco Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco (; born September 23, 1970) is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco's music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influe ...

opened on June 2, 2009, and Byrne played a double bill with

Marianne Faithfull Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single " As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British I ...

opening on July 30, 2009. The Extra Action Marching Band guested on "Burning Down the House" and "Road to Nowhere" on the October 7, 2008, and June 23, 24, and 26, 2009, dates. DeVotchka opened on some 2009 dates.

Tour dates

The tour was expected to run six months into spring 2009, including dates in Australia and Europe before finally concluding after 11 months with five legs worldwide: David Byrne by Ron Baker

†Date scheduled and later canceled

''Everything That Happens Will Happen on This Tour''

''Everything That Happens Will Happen on This Tour – David Byrne on Tour: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno'' is a 2009 live EP released by

recorded during the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour. The album is composed of live recordings of three songs from the 2009 Byrne/

Eno Eno may refer to: Music * English National Opera, London * ''Eno'', an album by Japanese band Polysics * "Eno", a song by X-Wife from '' Rockin' Rio EP'' Organisations and businesses * Eno (company), a Chinese clothing and accessories busine ...

collaboration ''

'' and one—"Help Me Somebody"—from their 1981 album '' My Life in the Bush of Ghosts''.

Recording and release

Byrne was approached by

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and s ...

to get involved in his tour. For years, Byrne had performed one date on his tours as a benefit and decided to record this EP with proceeds from sales benefiting the organization. Byrne's band performed with an audio system that could professionally record every show based around

Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture ( sound design, audio post-produ ...

. Byrne had these recordings mixed by

Patrick Dillett Patrick may refer to: *Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name *Patrick (surname), list of people with this name People *Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint *Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick or ...

—who was also responsible for

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

on ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today''. The album was made available digitally in the form of DRM-free 320 kbit/s

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

s with the option of a

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference softwa ...

as well. Like ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'', the EP was marketed with Internet startup Topspin Media. The album received a positive review from ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'', calling it "cheerful" and "lovely."

Track listing

All songs written by David Byrne and

; "Strange Overtones" co-written by

Leo Abrahams Leo Matthew Abrahams (born 1977 in Camden, London) is an English musician, composer and producer. He has collaborated with a multitude of professional musicians, including Brian Eno, Katie Melua, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barât, Regina ...

. #" Strange Overtones" – 4:37 #"Help Me Somebody" – 3:28 #"One Fine Day" – 4:34 #"I Feel My Stuff" – 6:29

Personnel

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

and

– keyboards * Paul Frazier –

* Redray Frazier –

* Graham Hawthorne –

* Kaïssa – background vocals *Jenni Muldaur – background vocals *

–

''Ride, Rise, Roar''

On February 11, 2010, it was announced that a documentary film entitled ''Ride, Rise, Roar'' chronicling the tour would be released to the 2010

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upo ...

circuit. The debut with be at

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, ...

on March 15, 2010, where it will be screened in all three media categories—film, interactive, and music. The film was the feature-length directorial debut by

Hillman Curtis David Hillman Curtis (February 24, 1961 – April 18, 2012) was an American new media designer, author, musician and filmmaker. Curtis was the Principal and Chief Creative Officer of hillmancurtis.com, inc., a digital design and film producti ...

—who also worked on the short film that accompanies the deluxe edition of ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today''. The film includes concert footage, footage of the planning and rehearsals for the tour, and exclusive interviews with Byrne, Eno, and the supporting musicians and dancers. Curtis was initially contacted to document the tour with no clear objective for the film and decided to focus on the collaboration between Byrne and his tour mates as well as the unique challenge of combining

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...

with

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

Stalking incident

While on tour, dancer Lily Baldwin started receiving letters from a stalker following the show in Europe. She turned her experience into the 2017 film ''Glass'' and began a website offering resources for those who are being stalked.

References

External links

Tour dates from Byrne's sitePress from Byrne's sitePhoto gallery
from

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...

Byrne performing on ''The Colbert Report''Amnesty International
* {{Brian Eno 2008 concert tours 2009 concert tours David Byrne concert tours Brian Eno