It’s 40 years of Talking Heads’ ‘Remain in Light’ and Jerry Harrison is celebrating at the Keswick
In his first tour in 25 years, the band's guitarist/keyboardist will be joined by guitarist Adrian Belew on March 7
Talking Heads guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison calls the band’s 1980 album, Remain in Light, “a line in the sand.” He so cherishes the album, which yielded the hit single “Once in a Lifetime,” that he decided to celebrate its 40th anniversary with his first tour in more than 25 years.
Renowned guitarist Adrian Belew, who worked with Frank Zappa and David Bowie prior to his collaborations with Talking Heads, and contributed to the original album and its ensuing tour, will join Harrison at the Keswick Theatre on Tuesday, March 7.
Largely crafted in the studio from spontaneous jams and influences from Africa polyrhythms, Remain in Light was so intricate that replicating it live required an augmented band. For the original tour, the four core members of Talking Heads — Harrison, David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth — were joined by five additional musicians, including Belew and funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell.
The current tour features an 11-piece ensemble, including members of the Brooklyn funk band Turkuaz and Philly native Julie Slick on bass.
“We were a very cerebral, artistic band for our first three records,” Harrison told The Inquirer. “But when we recorded Remain in Light, we created something that was impossible for us to do effectively as a four piece [on tour]. So we had to become a bigger band.”
While the album was largely recorded at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, overdubs were done at Sigma Sound Studios in New York, the Manhattan outpost of Joe Tarsia’s landmark Philly studio.
“I really liked the professionalism of Sigma Sound,” Harrison said. “Sometimes in New York, you’d go into a studio and the assistant engineer would say something like, ‘Oh, the Rolling Stones were in here last week.’ … Sigma had a more workmanlike, blue-collar quality, a ‘let’s just get the job done’ approach that I really liked.”
Over the years, Harrison and Belew have reminisced often about the Remain in Light tour. While the Talking Heads’ 1984 documentary, Stop Making Sense, is considered one of the greatest concert films ever made, Harrison prefers the band’s December 1980 concert at Rome’s Palazzo dello Sport, professionally filmed and available to view on YouTube from an old VHS source.
“It was near the end of that tour,” Harrison recalled, “the tightness, the excitement of the band, the energy, and the joy in the audience were all really special.”
With a Talking Heads reunion off the table, Harrison decided that Belew was the perfect partner for this endeavor while regretting that Worrell, who died in 2016, couldn’t be a part of the tour.
“Adrian is one of a handful of guitarists that have approached that instrument in a unique way and made sounds that other people try to copy,” Harrison said. “I felt that were I to go out and perform Talking Heads’ songs without the original members of the band, that Adrian was the one person who could bring an authenticity to it.”
Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew play the “Remain in Light 2023 U.S. Tour” March 7, 7:30 p.m., at the Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside. Tickets: keswicktheatre.com/events/detail/453241