Talk about staying power. Genre-jumping veteran David Byrne ended his five-night stand at the Knitting Factory with a show that timed-out at just under two hours. In typical Byrne fashion, the performance found the former Talking Head collaborating with a four-piece string quartet from the U.K. called the Balanescu Orchestra. |

The set began minus Byrne and band, with the Orchestra performing four original pieces that featured their two violins, viola and cello mixed with pre-recorded samples. The room reverberated with the trance-inducing pulse of club music -- but without the attendant trippiness. The music floated through the new-agey ethos and touched down in various genres without ever really getting its feet wet. The highlight of the quartet's set was its final piece, which featured the group's Romanian leader, Alexander Balanescu, reciting dates from the history of Communism over sampled voices and live string music. The whole affair evoked a super-hip Epcot Center exhibit.

Then it was time for the cause celebre. Byrne took the stage bedecked with headset microphone and a tight-fitting bluish cadet suit. He led his bandmates (Christina Wheeler on vocals and theremin, Desmond Foster on bass, and Rea Mochiach on drums and samples) through a set that wandered from exotic world music covers to selections from his numerous solo albums, including his latest effort, '97's Feelings. But for all its novelty, the set suffered from a deliberateness that often stifled spontaneity. String arrangements were ambitiously paired against Byrne's pop guitar strumming and Mochiach's sound samples. The music seemed torn between wanting to be just right and just wanting to breathe.

Depending on your perspective, Byrne came off as more laid-back than your average art-music composer or way more uptight than your average rock & roller. In fact, he has never claimed to be a rocker at heart, saying that the Talking Heads was a performance art ensemble that chose rock as its medium. Onstage, he dropped names of filmmakers Emil Kusturica and Wim Wenders and didn't think twice about performing pieces with lyrics in Portuguese.

In fact, the one time during the set when Byrne and band achieved a moment of exuberance came when they deigned to cover Whitney Houston's pop hit, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." Byrne bounced around stage inciting the formerly reserved audience to jeers and laughter. Unfortunately, Byrne restored his self-importance when he commented afterward, "Even Whitney needs help." He ended the set with an appropriately avant garde rendition of Kraftwerk's "The Model," as if to absolve himself of his pop-musical slumming.

JAMIE COWPERTHWAIT(October 15, 1998)