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Spike Lee’s David Byrne concert film American Utopia is headed back to cinemas in 4K for one night only
Spike Lee and David Byrne’s American Utopia returns to cinemas August 5 in 4K, with tickets on sale June 18.
David Byrne and Spike Lee’s American Utopia is headed back to cinemas for a one-night-only screening in 4K.
The concert film captures Byrne at a particular point in the long afterlife of his 2018 solo album American Utopia, when the project had already moved from touring production to Broadway run. Onstage, Byrne moved through songs from both his Talking Heads years and solo catalogue with an 11-piece ensemble that danced, shifted position and carried their instruments as part of the show’s choreography.
That live setup had already drawn praise during its travels, including NME’s description of the tour as “the most ambitious and impressive live show of all time,” a line Byrne later reused as the title of a live EP from the tour. The film version, released in 2020, now returns to independent and multiplex cinemas on August 5.
Tickets go on sale on June 18 and can be purchased here.
NME gave the film five stars at the time, calling it “New York’s finest teaming up for a greatest hits extravaganza that doubles as one of 2020’s best films”. The comparison to Stop Making Sense was inevitable, and the review made that clear, noting Jonathan Demme’s 1984 concert film as the benchmark any filmed David Byrne performance tends to face. Even without a triumphant “Girlfriend Is Better,” the piece argued, there was still plenty to take in, especially in the stripped-back staging that left the 12 barefoot musicians in sharp grey suits under purple and green light.
The Broadway version ran at the Hudson Theatre in New York City from October 2019 to February 2020, following a UK city tour that took place from October to November 2018. Lee shot the film with 11 camera operators, a setup designed to catch the production from as many angles as possible without losing the precision of the live show.
Byrne previously told NME that Lee was more hands-on as a fan than Byrne had expected. “I didn’t know how much of a fan Spike was! He’d even go, ‘Why don’t you do this song? Why don’t you add this song in’. We knew one another casually so I could text him and say, ‘I want you to come and see our show; I think that you might be interested in making a film of it’.”
More recently, Byrne brought that same blend of choreography and theatricality to Coachella, where his set leaned heavily on Talking Heads classics including “Psycho Killer”, “Once In A Lifetime”, “This Must Be The Place” and “Burning Down The House”.
