Witnessing David Byrne’s Who Is the Sky? tour is like stepping into a kaleidoscopic bubble bath for two hours. Turn the faucet hot, and you get the urgent reminder that “Life During Wartime” never really ends. Turn it again, and you can cool down with the sensual beauty known as “And She Was.” Byrne, sharing the stage with over a dozen untethered musicians — an artistic choice that he previously utilized to great effect for his American Utopia shows — alternates between performing his solo work and Talking Heads songs to create a euphoric atmosphere, something that seems more essential than ever in 2025. Large screens, too, festoon the outer edges of the stage, adding another layer of visual communication to enhance each song’s underlying message.
At least, that’s how I would describe what my concert experience was like. Byrne doesn’t want to give too much of his own thought process away. “Friends attempt to describe it to me,” he tells me with a chuckle, “but I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to describe it myself.”
