Talking Heads in concert

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 18

Talking Heads in concert

“Stop Making Sense,” which will start at the Regent tomorrow, was shot during four performances by Talking Heads in 1983 on December 13, 14, 15 and 16 at the Pantages Theatre, in Hollywood. The director, Jonathan Demme, and cinematographer, Jordan Cronenweth, deployed six locked-in cameras, one hand-held and one Panaglide. For the first time in movie history, 24-track stereo sound was recorded digitally for film. The budget for “Stop Making Sense,” raised by Talking Heads themselves, was approximately $1.2 million. As for the gigantic white suit that David Byrne wears during part of the performance, he was asked about it in a recent interview. “It’s about this high and this wide,” Byrne says, gesturing about a foot above

his shoulders and beyond his waist. “My hope was that it would look both funny and elegant at the same time. When you look at me from a distance, you see this little head, little hands and little feet. “The closest comparison I can think of are the. costumes they wear in no theatre in Japan — it’s big and square like the Japanese warrior costumes.” The songs, in the order in which they appear in the film, are: “Psycho Killer,” “Heaven,” “Thank You for Sending Me an Angel,” “Found a Job,” “Slippery People,” “Burnin’ Down the House,” “Life During Wartime,” “Making Flippy Flop,” “Swamp,” “What a Day That Was,” “Naive Melody (This Must, Be the Place),” “Once in a Lifetime,” “Genius of Love,” “Girlfriend is Better,” “Take Me to the River,” and “Cross-Eyed and Painless.”