As Talking Heads Stop Making Sense goes back to cinema and is getting an expanded album release, it is interesting to note that the band also had its final concert on the Speaking In Tongues tour in New Zealand on 6 February 1984.
The Stop Making Sense movie by Jonathan Demme was filmed just two months earlier in December 1983 at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. After the last Hollywood show on December 16, Talking Heads took Christmas and New Year off and then went to Australia in January 1983 for the Narara Festival in New South Wales on 28 January followed by two shows in Melbourne 30 and 31 January, and then the two New Zealand shows for Sweetwaters Music Festival on 4 and 6 1984.
The 6 February show was considerably shorter than the previous show two days earlier. The setlist on the tour was almost identical to the running order of the show captured for the Stop Making Sense movie but at the second New Zealand show David Byrne cut the show early and walked off in a Diva moment after ‘This Must Be The Place’.
This second show dropped ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘Big Business/I Zimbra’, ‘Girlfriend Is Better’, ‘Take Me To The River’ and ‘Life During Wartime’.
This was the final Talking Heads setlist:
Psycho Killer
Heaven
Thank You for Sending Me an Angel
Found a Job
Slippery People
Cities
Burning Down the House
Making Flippy Floppy
Swamp
What a Day That Was
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)
Encore:
Genius of Love
Talking Heads stopped touring completely after New Zealand and became a studio band for the last three albums ‘Little Creatures’ (1985), ‘True Stories’ (1986) and ‘Naked’ (1988). In December 1991, the band announced they had split up.
The only time they have reformed was on 18 March 2002 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony where they performed ‘Psycho Killer’, ‘Life During Wartime’, ‘Burning Down The House’ and ‘Take Me To The River’.
All four members, David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz will once again reunite on stage to discuss the restoration of the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023. It will be the first public appearance of the four original and only members of The Talking Heads since the Hall of Fame induction 21 years ago.
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