Talking Heads in Austin
Sept. 1982 concert at Fiesta Gardens was one to remember
Yesterday, Sept. 7, was the 40th anniversary of the most memorable Talking Heads concert in Austin. It was moved, with just a couple days notice, from City Coliseum to Fiesta Gardens because bassist Tina Weymouth was eight months pregnant and, after a string of smoke-filled halls earlier in the tour, it was determined that an outdoors venue would be healthier.
The prominently Latino neighborhood wasn’t sufficiently notified- or it didn’t matter if they were- so after the hip cutting-edgers invaded the Eastside enmasse on that Tuesday evening, some of their cars were negatively altered. One woman posting about this show on songwriter Edith Frost’s website recalled walking down a row of cars with their windows smashed out. But the show, sandwiched between Remain In Light (1980) and Speaking In Tongues (1983) was worth suffering mere property damage according to fan Rick Belden. “I was so euphoric by the time it was over that I didn’t even care that someone had spray-painted a black line down the side of my car during the show,” he posted. He kept it there to remind him of that fabulous night of heady dance music, ending with encores of “Take Me To the River” and “Cross-Eyed and Painless.”
Don’t know if the venue change ended up being such a great thing for Weymouth, who traded smoke for 100 degree heat, with her bass strapped on for two hours. But fan Lisa Wyatt Roe, who danced all set with 3,000 other ticketholders (plus those who exploited a breech in perimeter security by arriving by boat) said Weymouth was an inspiration. “She played so well, considering she was pregnant and it was a million degrees.”
The other Talking Heads show to consider was Nov. 21, 1980 at the Armadillo. This was a month after the release of the masterpiece Remain In Light, with its Afrobeat grooves, and the band was augmented by Adrian Bellew on guitar, Bernie Worrell on keyboards, and others. Every punk/new wave band in town wanted to open the show, but manager Heads’ manager Gary Kurfirst gave the plum to legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, who had been using our fair city as a moveable flophouse for several months. Bangs had been rehearsing with various Austin players, but replaced them for the Armadillo gig with an existing punk band called the Delinquents. While the ‘Dillo crowd was known for acceptance and leniency, they booed Lester’s awful performance- at least the ones who were there. The hall didn’t start to fill up until just before the Heads set because Nov. 21, 1980 was when the world locked into its TV sets to find out “Who Shot J.R.?” on Dallas.
After the first Talking Heads show in Austin, I hung around until the crowd at the Armadillo thinned out, eventually getting backstage. In their dressing room, Tina rolled joints on a paper plate and passed them around. They were very nice. I invited them to the Tlkng Hds Prty that Roland Swenson, David Fox, & I were having at our place on Woodrow.
When re-emerged into the hall, everyone was gone; the place was empty. Seriously high, I hitchhiked home, running the last couple of blocks. Breathless, I burst in to tell my got-high-backstage-with-Talking-Heads story. About the time I caught my breath, there was a knock at the door and David Byrne & Jerry Harrison came in.
The party was a success.
D-Day opened for the Talking Heads in Austin and at The Bronco Bowl in Dallas. In Dallas we got to hang out with the band. When David was running around the stage, he got a little to close to Tina's bass guitars in their stands, Tina was not happy. She was also pregnant. Later while smoking a joint in Bernie Worrell's room, the rhythm section collapsed into laughter at the classic "stink eye" Tina gave Dave over the bass guitar affair. Meanwhile, our bass player John Keller tried to explain, to David Byrne, what he thought "water flowing underground" meant. This went on for 30 minutes, at the end of which David informed John he was not even close. Classic.