¥THEY CALLED ITthe Pearl Harbour
Tour, and they opened each night
with a slashing version of “I’m So
BoredWiththeUSA”.ForanEnglish
punk band trying to break through in
theStates,itwasaninterestingmar-
keting approach. “England’s becom-
ing claustrophobic for us,” Joe Strum-
mer toldRolling Stone.“Ithink
touringAmericacouldbeanewlease
on life.” With a touring budget of
just $30,000 from their record label
(mostofwhichtheygavetoopening
actBoDiddley),theClashstormed
theheartlandandmadeconverts
wherever they went. During down-
time on their tour bus, they watched
a VHS copy ofStar Warsover and
over.TheyhitthePalladiuminNew
York in February, blowing away a
crowdthatincludedAndyWarhol
andBruceSpringsteen.“Everycoun-
try has one thing in common, which
is they all listen to shit music,” said
co-leader Mick Jones. “We’re here to
alleviate that.” ANDY GREENE¥IT WAS ANimagethatdefinedTalk-
ing Heads for a generation of music
fans – skinny, nervous David Byrne
on theSpeaking in Tonguestour,
struggling to dance in a cartoon-
ishlyhugewhitesuit.“WhatIre-
alised years before,” Byrne says, “is
Ihadtofindmyownwayofmov-
ingthatwasn’tawhiterockguytry-
ing to imitate black people, or bring
someotherkindofreceivedvisual
or choreographic language into pop
music....I just thought, ‘No, no, you
have to invent it from scratch.’”
Since forming in the mid-Seven-
ties, Talking Heads had gone from
CBGBNewWaverstooneofthebig-
gestbandsinAmerica.Forthetourto
support 1983’sSpeaking in Tongues,
their most popular album to date,
they reinvented themselves, growing
from a quartet to a nine-piece funk
mobthatincludedP-Funkkeyboard-
ist Bernie Worrell, Brothers Johnson
guitaristAlexWeirandvocalistLynn
Mabry. Byrne also took cues from the
experimental visual-art world, pro-
jecting abstract slides onto a spare
backdrop, creating a stark aesthetic
to match the band’s driving, unclut-
teredfunk.Thesuitwasinspiredin
part by Japanese Noh theatre.
What emerged was arty dance-
party transcendence. Byrne and
drummer Chris Frantz recall the
two-night run at New York’s Forest
HillsTennisStadiuminAugustas
ahighlight.“Madonnahadjustre-
leased her first record; she was walk-
ing around barefoot,” Frantz says. “I¥PINK FLOYD'S 1979rock opera,The
Wall,was their most ambitious
albumtodate,andwhentheytookit
on the road the next year they knew a
traditional stage show would simply
notdoitjustice.Pushingthelimitsof
concert technology, they built an ac-
tualwallduringthefirsthalfofevery
show, then played the bulk of the sec-
ond half behind it, obscured from
the audience. “Not much spontane-
ity,”saiddrummerNickMason,“but
we’re not known for our duckwalking
andgyratingaroundonstage.”
The logistics were so daunting
that they staged it only 31 times
across 16 months, hitting just four
cities: Los Angeles; London; Dort-
mund, Germany; and Uniondale,
NewYork.Themostdramaticmo-
mentoftheshowhappenednearthe
end, when the wall came tumbling
down. “The first couple of bricks
would terrify people in the front
rows,” said guitarist David Gilmour.
“Theaudiencewouldthinkthey
weregoingtobekilled.” A.G.1979 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR 1983 ‘SPEAKING IN TONGUES’ TOUR
1980-81 ‘THE WALL’ TOUR
THECLASH
TALKING HEADS
PINKFLOYD
sawMickJaggerandJerryHalloffto
thesideofthestage–shewasdanc-
ing,Mickwasn’t.”TheGreekTheater
in Berkeley the following month was
a similar bacchanal. “We’d begun to
get the Deadhead crowd,” Frantz
says, laughing.
In late 1983, the band decided
to document the tour with a con-
certfilm,andteamedupwithdirec-
tor Jonathan Demme (who would
later win an Oscar forThe Silence
of the Lambs).“Wedidn’twantany
ofthebullshit,”saysFrantzofthe
band’s initial idea forStop Making
Sense.“We didn’t want the clichés.
We didn’t want close-ups of people’s
fingers while they’re doing a guitar
solo. We wanted the camera to lin-
ger, so you could get to know the mu-
sicians a little bit.”
Shot over three nights at the Pan-
tages Theater in Los Angeles,Stop
Making Sensemay be the greatest
concertmovie.ItbeginswithByrne
walking onto a deserted stage with
a boombox, setting it down, press-
ing “play”, then reimagining “Psy-
choKiller”foracousticguitarand
808drum-machinebeats.Hisband-
mates and backing musicians join
him incrementally, song by song.
“It’scutdown,”Byrnenotes,com-
paring the film to the two-hour
shows, “but there were no other sub-
stantial changes.”
Theeffectwassoreal,peopleac-
tually got up and danced in movie
theatres. “I’d never seen that before,”
Frantz says. “Or since.” WILL HERMESCOLD CHISEL
1983
‘THELAST
STAND’TOUR
¥ROAD FATIGUEand diverging agendas were the official reasons for
Chisel’sshocksplit,butpersonaltensionshadrecentlyledtothetem-
porarydepartureofdrummerStevePrestwich.Twenty-sevengigs,in-
cluding five sold-out Sydney Entertainment Centres, found the band
inblisteringform;somesongsseeminglythrashedatdouble-speed
to cram 10 years into three hours. As the slippery tangle of exhaust-
ed punters traipsed home, some quietly concluded that a new tune as
perfectas“FlameTrees”couldn’treallymean the end. MICHAEL DWYER68 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.comGREATEST
50 CONCERTSJuly, 2017‘THE WALL’
TOUR:
BY THE
NUMBERS
The 31-date
tour was
the most
technically
complex in
rock at that
point. Here’s a
look at what
went into it.Number
of white
fireproof,
reinforced
cardboard
boxes that
made up
the wall:
340Number
of feet a
hydraulic
lift hoisted
Gilmour
into the air
every night
to play his
“Comfortably
Numb” solo
on top of
the wall:
33Number of
dollars the
band earned
from the
entire tour,
excluding
keyboardist
Richard
Wright, who
was fired
during the
making of the
album and
was brought
on as a
hired hand:
$0.00