Jerry Harrison & Adrian Belew Illuminate Talking Heads & More At Remain In Light Tour Stop In Boston

After years of waiting, Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew’s Remain In Light Tour finally came to Boston’s House of Blues for a newly invigorated take on Talking Heads material that simultaneously introduced their audience to funk act, Cool Cool Cool.

As the name implies, the tour exists to showcase material off of the Talking Heads’ 1980 masterpiece, Remain In Light, and they did so by keeping the material instantly recognizable while injecting a 21st-century vigor into the tunes that made the songs stand in contrast to their studio versions.

The show started with “Psycho Killer,” and songs like “I Zimbra,” “Born Under Punches,” and “Cities,” filled out the middle. They even worked in King Crimson’s “Thela Hun Ginjeet,” a wild prog-rock staple that has long been one of Belew’s most recognizable recordings.

While the name of the tour makes clear the show exists to focus on the Talking Heads tunes, it was virtuoso session guitarist Adrian Belew who really stole the show. Jerry Harrison composed these songs alongside his Talking Heads bandmates and credit where credit is due to the creator. With that said, they brought Belew in to record on the album when they wanted their tracks to pack some extra punch, and seeing him throw down in a live setting was simply mesmerizing.

Belew navigated around the fretboard of his custom, master-built Fender Stratocaster with the precision of a NASCAR driver but with enough unpredictable chaos to come across more like someone playing a Mario Kart level where the track is slippery from freezing over. In the neck position, Belew packs a Sustainiac pickup that allows for infinite sustain (think Ed O’Brien’s lead on Radiohead’s “The National Anthem”) but what really makes his sound is the way he uses things contrary to their design.

Belew regularly wails on his whammy bar backward, bringing the pitch up rather than down with every press of the tremolo, and he even has a knack for bending his strings on the dead side of the guitar’s nut which isolates the vibrations of the strings from the tuning knobs.

There are few players alive who have a tone so recognizable that you can tell who’s playing within a second of hearing them: Derek Trucks, Trey Anastasio, Tom Morello and Jack White all fall under this category, and while Belew’s name might not be as recognizable as those players, his work with everyone from Talking Heads to Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails and King Crimson makes clear without question that he’s a member of the club.

Another exciting component of this tour was that it served as a de facto coming-out party for Cool Cool Cool. When this tour was first announced prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, Belew and Harrison were going to be backed up onstage by Turkuaz. Harris and Belew performed a few Remain In Light shows with Turkuaz but a very sudden and surprise announcement that seven of the nine members were quitting the group made the tour’s future uncertain.

Those seven Turkuaz alums went on to found Cool Cool Cool and prior to Belew and Harrison’s performance, they played a set of their own. Vocalists Shira Elias and Sammi Garett always came off as backup singers in Turkuaz, playing in service of frontman Dave Brandwein (who is not in Cool Cool Cool) a la Diana Ross and the Supremes. Now, without a Diana Ross to tear them down, Elias and Garett appear to be lifting each other up, diving headfirst into their shared role as frontwomen of the ensemble.

When most people think of Talking Heads, they think of David Byrne. Big suit, eccentrics, the whole Megillah. With that said, sax player Josh Schwartz sang the Byrne parts perfectly and the uninhibited excitement Belew consistently displayed ensured that their audience should want for nothing.

It can’t be denied that David Byrne is essential to the DNA of the Talking Heads but the biggest accomplishment of Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew’s Remain In Light Tour is that when you closed your eyes and listened, Byrne wasn’t even missed.

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Setlist

Source: JamBase.com