Stop Making Sense (1984)

 

Off-List: Stop Making Sense

Last night, my wife and I were invited by friends to watch “Stop Making Sense” at Cinemateket in Copenhagen as part of their music film festival. As it turned out, this was quite an experience and I do believe that as a 1984 movie, “Stop Making Sense” deserve some recognition and a mention on my blog.

“Stop Making Sense” is a concert film featuring the band “Talking Heads”. It was filmed over four nights at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles but is cut so that you get the impression it is a single concert. Quite an achievement, actually, considering that all four nights must have been exactly the same to be able to create a seamless cut.

The show starts with David Byrne entering the stage with a guitar and a ghetto blaster. All on his own with the tape as backing he does “Psycho Killer”. Slowly the stage fills up. For the second song Tina Weymouth joins him, then Chris Frantz and so on until the sixth song, “Burning Down the House”, when the entire band is complete.

The show is a tour de force of the “Talking Heads” catalogue. There are songs I recognize and songs that I do not, but it does not really matter because the energy is there in every single song. This is partly due to the enthusiasm of the band, but also driven by the Duracell-bunny that is David Byrne. His idiosyncrasies, his energy and his magic voice are all infecting and I have the impression he could read up from a children’s book and still rivet the audience.

A very big part of why this was a special experience was to watch this on the big screen in the cinema. The theatre was full, and the audience was very enthusiastic. One of our group who works in the cinema business told me that the sound system used was very clever and of very high quality, so that you felt immersed in the concert and when the audience was cheering, we felt we were in the audience too so we clapped and cheered as well. It really was the second-best thing to actually being there. You got the same rush through the audience when people recognize a song and felt the same excitement as you would at the real concert forty years ago.

That was also a wondrous experience, that this did not feel 40 years ago. Apart from a few haircuts, this concert could have been recorded yesterday. The soundscape by “Talking Heads” has aged very well, meaning that I would expect or hope for the same in a concert today. Some elements may have been avantgarde in 1984, but today it is just awesome. Even though some of the synth effects may sound retro today, that sound is often actively pursued and best of all, this is music you really want to move to. I would say that the only drawback to watching this in the cinema is the inability to dance.

As it happened, the event had a solution to that. The bar of Cinmateket was converted to a dance floor and when the movie ended, the “Talking Heads” songs continued there. I think we were at it for two hours and, man, I do not think I have danced at all for half a decade. This crowd was the most unlikely combination imaginable, with the age groups spanning six decades.  We all stood out like sore thumbs and therefore nobody stood out.

“Stop Making Sense” has been titled the best concert movie ever. That is a lot of hype, but it may actually be the case, especially if watched in a cinema with an enthusiastic crowd.

This was a unique and great experience. If you ever get the chance to watch this in a cinema, do not think twice.