On February 27, 2026, a piece of pop history will roll into "THE HALL". When David Byrne presents his new stage project there, many in the audience will not only see the solo artist, but above all the man who once electrified the 1980s with Talking Heads.
The Talking Heads started out in 1975 in the New York underground, but found their place in the mainstream by 1980 at the latest. With "Once in a Lifetime", they existentially asked "How did I get here?" - Millions sang along. In 1983, they blazed their way into the Billboard top ten with "Burning Down the House". Byrne usually stood bolt upright on stage, eyes wide open, moving in fits and starts - a mixture of nervousness, theater and dance that went perfectly with the nervous new wave groove.
It was the concert film "Stop Making Sense" (1984) that made Byrne a pop icon: his legendary giant jacket, the gradually growing band, the clapping intro to "Psycho Killer" - to this day, the film is considered perhaps the best live document of its time. And in the Zurich cinema Le Paris, where the film was shown every Friday evening for years, people danced to it in front of the screen.
After the end of the Talking Heads in 1991, Byrne swapped the garish pop mantle for a hodgepodge of artistic adventures. He founded the world music label Luaka Bop, released Latin albums and wrote film scores. On his solo records, he jumped from Brazilian rhythms to electronic and back again - always curious, never predictable.
Byrne landed his biggest solo hit to date in 2019 with "American Utopia" on Broadway. Eleven barefoot musicians marched wirelessly across the stage while Byrne mused about brain synapses and social networks. Spike Lee captured the spectacle on film in 2020; in 2021 there was the Special Tony Award on top. Suddenly, TikTok users were dancing to "Road to Nowhere", teenagers discovered the quirky genius - and Byrne became a pop-cultural presence in his mid-70s.
But anyone who thinks retirement comes after that doesn't know Byrne very well. In September 2025, "Who Is the Sky?" will be released - his first solo album since "American Utopia". Produced by Kid Harpoon, arranged by the Ghost Train Orchestra, guests include St. Vincent and Hayley Williams. The lead single "Everybody Laughs" already shows how Byrne once again gets to the heart of everyday banalities in a poetic way.
The live version will start in North America in the fall of 2025, tour Australia and New Zealand and land in Europe in February 2026. In Dübendorf, Byrne will be on stage with 13 musicians and dancers; all of them mobile, all of them constantly on the move - a concept that echoes the Broadway show.
His favorite anecdote shows that Byrne doesn't take himself too seriously: he only invented the giant jacket to make his head look smaller - "music is physical, the body understands it faster than the head". This principle still applies today: the new arrangements may be intellectually sophisticated, but live it's all about groove, sweat and collective singing along.
In the end, David Byrne remains a walking contradiction: art rocker and hit maker, concept artist and chart topper, pop professor and ramp sow. For some he is contemporary history, for others a newly discovered insider tip. Around 40 years after "Burning Down the House", the fire is still burning - this time in Dübendorf.
There is a new, official music video for the Talking Heads classic "Psycho Killer".