Last night, David Byrne officially opened the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series held each summer at the Prospect Park Bandshell. The free show was part of the former Talking Heads singers extended promotional tour behind Everything that Happens will Happen Today, his 2008 collaboration with Brian Eno. Dubbed the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno tour, the 90-minute performance featured material culled from the longtime collaborators various projects: Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music and Remain in Light as well as Byrnes The Catherine Wheel, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Everything that Happens will Happen Today.
Despite being Byrnes fourth New York area performance since launching the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno tour this past fall, last nights free show drew a capacity crowd, with several thousand additional fans listening outside the performance spaces enclosed areas. In certain ways, Byrne has aged into the godfather of New Yorks underground music scene and the performance drew three very distinct groups of New Yorkers: fans of his 1980s hit-making days with Talking Heads, younger music aficionados who found him through his influence on jambands like Phish, Widespread Panic and String Cheese Incident and representatives from the New York indie rock scenes who are also likely drawn to the singers other artistic endeavors.

Partway through Byrnes performance last night, former Talking Heads percussionist Steve Scales also joined Byrnes band onstage for a selection of songs, including Once In a Lifetime, Burning Down the House’ and Life During Wartime. Scales played percussion with Talking Heads both in the studio and on the road from 1980-85 and can be heard on such recordings as The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures and most notably Stop Making Sense. He also appears on both The Catherine Wheel and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and was a member of the Talking Heads offshoot band Tom Tom Club. Byrne will appear at Charlottesville, VAs Charlottesville Pavilion tomorrow.