Just got back from a week in Kansas City, where we had a good old time hanging out with the Old Man and his lovely wife. As it happened — well, as I planned it — both David Byrne and Ween were in town at the same time as us, and so we had a couple of full-on rock’n’roll experiences with the folks in tow.
Byrne was touring in support of his new album American Utopia, but he was kind enough to favor us with a half-dozen Talking Heads songs, including “Once in a Lifetime,” “I Zimbra,” “Naive Melody,” and “Burning Down the House.” Some of his new material was quite good too, but there is simply no matching the power of those classics. A full-on Heads reunion seems to be out of the question, so I guess that’s as close as we’ll get.
The Ween show was a bit disappointing; both the acoustics and the selection of material left something to be desired. Though we did get great renditions of “Ocean Man,” “Big Jilm,” and “Piss Up the Rope.” Thanks to the latter, I can now say that I’ve heard 2,000 Midwesterners enthusiastically singing “On your knees you big booty bitch, start sucking.” Which is nice.
We ended up leaving during the first encore, and so not until I looked at the set list later did I learn that they had closed with one of my very favorites, “Buenos Tardes Amigo.” So it goes. On the whole, I can’t complain.