My dancing debut was at my first primary school disco, caterwauling with preteen enthusiasm and hopping with an arm limply pumping along to Party Rock and Shake It Off. The years went on, the songs stayed the same, I became overwhelmed with cringe. I felt my dancing was abominable, so much so that I could not be uprooted from my table at formal. Worse still was singing with a voice I have never been able to dislodge from the back of my nose. The worst was the thought of doing all that in front of an audience again.

On the 23rd, a balmy Friday, the Hayden Orpheum put on one of its delightful retrospectives: Stop Making Sense. Set over four nights in LA during December 1984, in a theatre packed with denim-wrapped renegades, Jonathan Demme filmed Talking Heads’ titular concert. The film’s been getting more daylight recently as A24 has been screening it in theatres for its 40th anniversary. Being a fan of the band’s hectic energy, evocative lyrics, and simply David Byrne’s entire deal, I had to go.

I made my way alone, humming sotto voce on the 172X to Cremorne, but only when out of earshot. When I arrived, I was surprised to find band instruments set up in front of the screen. I had assumed we were going to jump right into the screening, but the Orpheum had booked a cover band to warm us up. Securing a seat far back enough for anonymity, I was sipping my refreshing cup of wine when the band appeared. They, a group of men of Classic-Rock-addicted father age, as well as a co-lead of Classic-rock addicted mother age, introduced themselves as Heads Talking. The two leads, Ilan Kildron and Miranda Carey, wore unshakeable smiles and beamed with fanatic love for Talking Heads. The other members were more subdued, but clearly confident and excited to play.

With their opener, ‘Burning Down the House’, the cover band plugged their amps right into my bloodstream (rocket to my brain!). My feet wiggled excitedly, and my head lolled with a beaming smile. Kildron, performing Byrne’s role, implored those of us cowering up back to come down. If they’d have asked straight away, I definitely would have demurred, but my long-held anxieties were obliterated by that first song. As I hobbled down, sitting in sweat-flinging distance from the band, a chic woman eyed me as if she’d seen a hundred similarly neurotic youngins do the same thing before. She was smartly dressed, her matte black bob framing her sparkling brown eyes and contrasting perfectly with her white silk top. 

While Kaldron and Carey Egyptian-walked around each other, a book club’s worth of older women boogied down to the stage, some dragging along their wooden husbands. My neighbour and I bobbed a little at first—I was confident, but still deathly afraid of anyone seeing my hips wobble. But then they sashayed down and left the entire row to me. 

When the next song came on, ‘Life During Wartime’, the lead jumped off stage and shot through the gaggle of swaying couples. My leg, wagging along, got more and more insistent; my head swayed so much I saw the beautiful Art Deco decorations dancing above me like a chorus of red velvet angels. Spotting my neighbour with her arms in the air gave me the final push.

I planted myself at the edge of the stage, rolled my hips, warbled along, and had a damn good time! I shook my head till all my paranoia fell out and sang about beautiful wives and beautiful houses and asked myself: How did I get here?

After Heads Talking finished up, we all filtered back to our seats. My neighbour introduced herself as Ana and I learned she had seen the film at 13 when it came out in ‘85. Still panting and patting off sweat, we chatted a bit more about the beauty and thrill of Talking Heads. We bonded a little, the way you do with strangers you’ll never see again, about how affirming David Byrne and the band’s music is for neurodivergent people. Then the curtains opened and Byrne, looking even lankier blown up on the cinema screen, strolled out on the stage in LA and told the crowd he had a tape he wanted to play.

The concert began simply: David Byrne alone on stage, a boombox by his feet and an acoustic guitar in his hands. Byrne opened with ‘Psycho Killer’, wobbling around on an empty stage singing “qu-est que c’est?” With each song, the stage gradually built up, first with bassist Tina Weymouth joining in, then the rest of the main band and backup singers and a percussionist. The visuals were mostly stripped back: all the members’ outfits were varying tones of grey—even Byrne’s famous square suit—and the only props, from memory, were a lamp and a background screen displaying seemingly random words during ‘Life During Wartime’. However, the minimal visuals allowed for the real substance to take centre-stage: the music. I was just as rapt in ecstasy as the fanatics around me watching Byrne traipse around the rest of Heads, stumbling and shaking and belting out the band’s unique New-Age sound while lights played melodies on his face. 

My rocketing enthusiasm stayed through the screening, mellowing at ‘Heaven’ and exploding at ‘Crosseyed and Painless’. I wasn’t quite dancing, but I was feeling it, moving as much as I could in my restrictive cinema seat. 

Walking out from the Orpheum, I gyrated out onto the main road and continued to sway at the bus stop. I put in my airpods and started up ‘Speaking in Tongues’ and silently sang all the way back to the CBD. I couldn’t stand straight when I got on the light rail, so I hopped off at Chinatown and skipped, grooving all the way back to Randwick. I probably did look like the fool I was afraid of being, but damn, it did feel amazing.