From August 1980 through February 1981, Talking Heads toured North America, Europe, and Japan as a gigantic band, making groundbreaking music.
An entire show, including the tour’s whole setlist, is beautifully documented on the expanded version of “The Name of This Band is Talking Heads.” There are also several exciting live videos from the tour that you can easily find online.
From an audio quality POV, the Amsterdam soundboard stands out, both for clarity and for being quite a different mix than the one featured on “The Name of This Band is Talking Heads.”
The Amsterdam mix is also notable because it is not dominated by huge bass and drums and massed vocals. Instead, the higher end of the percussion is emphasized, the guitars are quite prominent, and the individual vocalists are more discernible.
That balance makes some songs fall flat, but it takes others into a fantastic, wiry, “Fear of Music” place. Those performances are featured on this mix, re-EQed somewhat to bring up the bottom end.
28-minute mp3 mix zipped up here
- Born Under Punches
- Crosseyed & Hungry (edit)
- Drugs
- Warning Sign
- Cities
You’ll find a couple of other weirdo Save Your Face Talking Heads experiments here.