Talking Heads bandmates David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison will make a public appearance together next month in Toronto for the first time since their 2002 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Bringing them together is the upcoming 40th anniversary of the group’s concert film, Stop Making Sense. A newly restored version will screen in Imax at Cineplex’s Scotiabank Imax Theatre as part of the Toronto Film Festival on September 11.
After that screening, Byrne, Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison will sit for a Q&A moderated by filmmaker Spike Lee. Byrne recently worked on the film version of Lee’s Broadway show American Utopia. The screening and Q&A will be shown live in theaters across the world, with the refreshed Stop Making Sense premiering September 22 in tandem with distributor A24.
The concert film is peak Talking Heads, captured by director Jonathan Demme at December 1983 performances at Los Angeles’ Pantages Theater. It was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2021 in recognition of its cultural and historical significance.
The reunion is somewhat surprising, given that the group has been largely estranged for some time. But the doors haven’t been slammed shut, as evidenced by their joint promotion in 1999 of the film’s 15th anniversary. The four also performed “Life During Wartime,” “Psycho Killer” and “Burning Down the House” at the Rock Hall of Fame ceremony in 2002.
Byrne has allegedly been the holdout on a full-blown musical reunion. But the group has reportedly mended some fences recently and were said to be getting on well.
Byrne is busy with the Broadway production of his musical, Here Lies Love, written with Fatboy Slim.