David Byrne Brings Love, Kindness & Unique Style to Coachella

by Julian Spivey

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While Coachella is often headlined by the biggest stars in pop music – like Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Bieber this year – it also highlights legends of the past, like David Byrne and Iggy Pop.
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There was only one Coachella set I made the time to check out on the California festival’s YouTube channel during this busy weekend that included spending time with old friends and watching the Masters Tournament, and that was Byrne’s delightful 13-song set that featured heavily on Talking Heads greatest hits.

Byrne was, of course, the frontman for the Talking Heads, the art-pop group that mostly met at an art school in Rhode Island before taking New York City by storm in the late ‘70s with its unique sound and Byrne’s beguiling on-stage presence with his unusual dance movements.

Byrne has been performing with a large ensemble of musicians, backup vocalists and dancers, who all stroll across the stage in unique ways, often with instruments like drums and keyboards strapped to their bodies so they’re not stationary. The artists dress the same, and the show is as much an art installation as a rock concert, making for a unique blend of the arts you’ll likely only see from someone like Byrne.

At almost 74 years old, Byrne has the on-stage stamina of someone much younger than himself, of which the majority of his bandmates are.

Byrne’s set opened on Saturday night at the Outdoor Stage of the Indio, Calif., festival grounds with a performance of “Everybody Laughs,” a single off his most recent album Who is the Sky? (2025).

Byrne’s set began 30 minutes late (for reasons unknown to me) and was opposite of Saturday’s headliner, Justin Bieber, which, according to reports from the festival, led to many, unfortunately, missing out on this wonderful performance.

I can’t imagine people wanting to see Bieber, whose set was reportedly super lackluster, over an artist of Byrne’s magnitude.

The first of the Talking Heads classics came early with “And She Was,” off 1985’s Little Creatures. Byrne told the crowd that the song was inspired by a former classmate who was always happy and used to lie down in a field near the Yoo-hoo chocolate beverage factory and just drift away. He added that the reason was that she was on acid.

Among other notable Talking Heads performances during the first half of Byrne’s set were “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) and “(Nothing But) Flowers.”

Among his most recent works, a highlight was “When We Are Singing,” which I first heard the week before, when he appeared on CBS’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and performed it. It’s a lovely piece of work.

Following this, Byrne finished his Coachella set in the most epic way imaginable with what could very well be the four greatest (or at least maybe most known) Talking Heads hits: “Psycho Killer” (1977), “Life During Wartime” (1979), “Once in a Lifetime” (1981) and “Burning Down the House” (1983).

“Psycho Killer” was my favorite performance of the set, overall, as it’s always been my favorite Talking Heads song, as one who’s admittedly a novice when it comes to the Talking Heads' complete discography. Byrne has always been an interesting figure to me, and the more I learn about him and the more I listen to his music, the more of a fan I become. Maybe I won’t be a novice for long?

I forget which song Byrne prefaced with a wonderful anecdote of which he heard from filmmaker and actor John Cameron Mitchell when Byrne said: “[Mitchell] said that love and kindness are the most punk things you can do right now. It was a little confusing for me; I thought, ‘Oh, loud, angry music, love and kindness.’ I didn’t quite get the connection. And then I realized: yeah, he’s right. Love and kindness are a form of resistance.”

There was a lot of love and kindness from Byrne on Saturday night, of course, it was in addition to that great song about a psycho killer.