I don't use the word genius very often as sparingly it tends to mean more but I would use the word genius to describe you. There are so many things about you I admire-your lyrics and music of course but the fact that you're creative in a way most musicians aren't is also a part of what defines you. Watching you dance across the stage, never missing a beat, reminds me of some manic prince.
I think of you quite often but, strangely enough, I just recently last Thursday saw Stop Making Sense for the very first time. It was quite glorious on a huge IMAX screen put on by Sound Opinions, a radio show based in Chicago. There was so much demand they had to add a second show for it. I wish you could have been there for it, David. There wasn't very much space to dance but the audience clapped along and wild applause erupted after the close of each song, just like it would have happened in reality. There were alot of people yelling for the theater to turn your music up, too, though it wasn't your fault that it played too softly for us. In a way, it can never really be loud enough, can it?
It's strange for me to tell you this, David, but I feel I can share with you and hopefully you'll take it as a compliment. Usually, when I photograph a musician who has been around for awhile, even if it's a great show, I can't help wish I could take my camera equipment back in time and photograph twenty years before that. With you, it's much different. I couldn't help watching Stop Making Sense and thinking how in 1984 I was only 5 and I didn't even know the symbolism behind a "talking head." The first time I heard a Talking Heads song was my sneak peak into an adult party at the Renaissance Festival in NY. They were playing "Burning Down the House" on the stereo and dancing wildly. All these actors looked so much different out of their costumes that I'd never forget it.
Yet, even though you look frantic on stage in Stop Making Sense, as engaging as ever, your show in Chicago was far from disappointing. It almost seems as if your brilliance increases with age. You, with your stark white hair sticking up perfectly in all the right places. Every song was better than the last. I'll remember that forever, too.
I know you're an avid bicyclist, David, so perhaps you'll appreciate the fact that both times I've gone out to see you, first when you played the Civic Opera House in person and most recently for Stop Making Sense, it's been on turbulent nights. Crazy rains and winds couldn't hold me back. The sky was made of glass and willing to break all over me. The air was a torque created by an angry god to throw me from my bicycle far far away. Still, I bicycled on to be close to you, even if as in the case of last Thurs, the you was just on a screen.
While I bicycled through the monster called night, I thought, "Truly, Heaven is a place where nothing happens." But also, it's a place by your side, David. I'm sure your music is playing there.
Love,
Kirstiecat
**All photos are copyrighted. Please don't use without permission***
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