Additionally, you’ll see on guitar a certain Adrian Belew, who would begin fronting King Crimson the following year. Talking Heads enthusiasts, note that Live in Rome features the group’s full “Afro-Funk Orchestra” lineup.
David Byrne and company express the same kind of off-kilter energy on display in Stop Making Sense - the enthusiasm of punks who also happen to be musicology nerds - but here they express it in a simpler, more traditionally “rock concert-ish” setting. Live in Rome, which you can now watch uncut on YouTube, captures the Heads in 1980, a less established moment in their history. But that picture opened in 1984, when the band had already released its most widely respected albums, and when they had only four years to go before effectively dissolving. Given its physical meticulousness, its seamless editing, and its refined aesthetic sense - qualities rarely prioritized in rock concert films - its place in the zeitgeist seems well earned.
Few bands can boast a performance so image-defining as the one the Talking Heads pulled off in Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense.
