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Talking Heads bandmates David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison will make a rare public appearance together next month at the Toronto International Film Festival for a screening of their 1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense.
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The celebration will mark the first time the quartet has gathered together publicly since their 2002 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
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Filmmaker Spike Lee, who will be honoured at the fest with a Tribute Award, will moderate a Q&A between the bandmembers from Cineplex’s Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto that will be broadcast live to select IMAX theatres around the world.
“Some people say you’ll never find a better concert documentary than Stop Making Sense,” said TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey. “I’m one of those people. Talking Heads is at the top of their form. Working with [director] Jonathan Demme, they build their performance scene by scene, song by song into a work of pure, cathartic power. Maybe you’ve seen it before. But you’ve never seen it in IMAX.”
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One of the most popular new wave bands of the ’70s and ’80s, the Grammy-nominated band split up acrimoniously after they released their eighth and final studio album Naked in 1988.
Byrne, 71, admitted in a recent interview with PEOPLE that he acted like a “little tyrant” prior to their breakup.
“As a younger person, I was not as pleasant to be around. When I was working on some Talking Heads shows, I was more of a little tyrant,” he says. “And then I learned to relax, and I also learned that collaborating with people, both sides get more if there’s a good relationship instead of me telling everybody what to do.”
He added that he now has “regrets on how that was handled.”
“I don’t think I did it in the best way, but I think it was kind of inevitable that would happen anyway,” Byrne says. “We have a cordial relationship now. We’re sort of in touch, but we don’t hang out together.”