LIVE: DAVID BYRNE – Perth, 27 Jan 2026

Shane | 28 January 2026 | Reply

LIVE: DAVID BYRNE – Perth, 27 Jan 2026
RAC Arena, Perth, Western Australia
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Michael Farnell

With the groundbreaking live Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense from 1984 in our minds, the last thing we’d expect from David Byrne was a “normal” rock show, but even we weren’t expecting a 13-piece band clad in orange jumpsuits each carrying their instruments and moving around the stage with a kind of meticulously choreographed free form fluidity.

The semicircular stage itself acts as a video & photo backdrop, including the floor under their feet and sometimes the band members themselves. It adds up to an all joyous, all uplifting, all singing, all vibrant, all dancing spectacle: a flickering movie in the flesh where light and colour and imagery and music and art are entwined.

Byrne starts with the Talking Heads song Heaven, features a good chunk of his latest solo album Who Is The Sky?, and when he addresses the rapturous crowd it’s with an easy affability and a strong sense of humour. Introducing And She Was he shares a tale of a high school acid trip which inspired the song, and his vocals are as resonant as ever.

[Show picture list]

T-shirt features a myriad of slogans projected onto the back screens (Perth Kicks Ass – No Kings – We Keep Going In Circles – Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History – We’re All Dogs In God’s Hot Car – Make America Gay Again all receiving special cheers and applause) while the Latino rhythms of Nothing But Flowers prove impossible to sit still to. We practically did a Zumba workout in our seats, and later on our feet.

It’s a celebration not only of a remarkable musical career, but also his quirky artist’s brain. Being the progressive artist he is we expected some overt criticism of Trump’s America, but Byrne kept the politics very subtle, at least to start with. “Love and kindness are a form of resistance” he told us at one point; at another he shared a video of Italians singing to strangers from their balconies during Lockdown, stressing that this was especially prevalent on their Liberation Day celebrating the end of fascism.

Subtle it may be, but the point hits home strongly: peace, love, kindness, music, art… that’s the currency of Resistance. The fascists only tear down, they don’t create.

Photos of his cosy New York apartment feature during My Apartment Is My Friend and he recalls being holed up there alone during the pandemic, watching nature documentaries; while a reimagined cover of Parmore’s Hard Times also hits hard.

A trio of Talking Heads favourites close out the main set, starting with an amazing Psycho Killer which builds to a mighty climax, each band member bathed in a white spotlight against the black background.

A wildly brilliant Life During Wartime, delivered at breakneck speed is where the gloves come off. Videos adorn the screens of protests against Trump’s goon squad ICE, and our hearts go out to our American friends. This is life during wartime, indeed. The classic Once In A Lifetime almost feels like an anticlimax after this powerful statement (almost).

An encore of Everybody’s Coming To My House and Burning Down The House finish the marvellous show on a stunningly high note, the crowd pouring out of the arena in awe of the remarkable performance they just witnessed.

Setlist:
Heaven
Everybody Laughs
And She Was
Strange Overtones
Houses in Motion
T Shirt
(Nothing but) Flowers
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
What Is the Reason for It?
Like Humans Do
Don’t Be Like That
Independence Day
Slippery People
Moisturizing Thing
My Apartment Is My Friend
Hard Times
Psycho Killer
Life During Wartime
Once in a Lifetime