Here Lies Love

I just got back from an almost week long trip to New York City. But more about that later. This past Saturday (3 February) evening was spent in Carnegie Hall watching David Byrne's newest project "Here Lies Love" with my pals Jen and Caroline. Jen is a self-described obsessed Byrne fan, I am at least a pre-solo-Byrne fan (I'm just honestly not that familiar with anything sans 'talking' or 'heads') and Caroline seemed happy to be enjoying all of it. I had no idea what we were in for, but what unfolded was a fantastic song-cycle, which David explained as the evolution of the story of Imelda Marcos and the family servant who had raised her, Estralla Campos. (Okay; I lied: I knew that much going into it, but I had no idea what it would sound like.) The concert was the last of a four-day series, the other three shows I will not speak to as I know next to nothing of what they were about. There is more information on the rest of the series presented by Mr. Byrne here. David Byrne.com offers great detail on the work and series, including explanations of songs David relayed to us in shy, humble banter that was hard not to resist either through laughter, giggles or sighs audible throughout the audience. I successfully recorded three terrible videos with my trusty digital camera during the show as follows; click to load in your browser or "save link/target as" to view later: "A Perfect Hand" (with banter), "When She Passed By" and "Walk Like a Woman" (with banter -- [Update] Thanks for the correction, Graham!) and a snippet of "Solano Avenue", the last being from the final act including strings and brass. These are large files so be patient (73.5MB, 213.0MB and 43.6MB, respectively). Listen through a good pair of speakers to pick out detail, otherwise you might regard all of us who fell in love with the performance as crazy. The two women who accompanied Byrne on vocals, Joan Almedilla and Guanda Suthivarakom as "Imelda" and "Estella", respectively, have two of the most angelic -- and forceful -- voices I have ever heard. Worthy of Wendy's Peter Pan lullabies and Aretha's "Respect". Again, this won't be so clear through my recordings, but unlike Levar Burton, I hope you take my word for it. And I would like to state for the record that percussionist Mauro Refosco blew me away. He kept varying rhythm with each limb of his body at times.

Oh, and no shoes.

David felt the need to point out that he had not mentioned Imelda's shoes at any point of this narrative until he had finished his storytelling. We all laughed at being let in on the joke. (Thanks, Harry.)

I just hope that this performance will be released either as live recordings or that Byrne and his band of merry men and women will find time to invoke Imelda in a studio.