More than 40 years ago, on February 6, 1984, Talking Heads played their final show together in New Zealand at the Sweetwaters South Festival. After that, they never toured again, although they did record three more albums together.
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The 1983-1984 tour was a whirlwind, as documented in the film Stop Making Sense. A full band and extravagant visuals made for a great trek and a great concert film, but it all came to a screeching halt in New Zealand. Members of the Talking Heads have described this show as their worst, and in general it’s not particularly favored.
They were up for a 12-song set during the festival, playing hits from their recently released album Speaking in Tongues. They played “Burning Down the House,” “Swamp,” and “This Must Be the Place.” However, according to drummer Chris Frantz, the band nearly didn’t finish the set.
Talking Heads Almost Didn’t Finish Their Final Show, Which Led to Them Never Touring Again
In 2020, Chris Frantz explained the moment things almost went wrong for the Talking Heads at that last show. “David [Byrne] left the stage in the middle of the set, and I had to go get him and basically drag him back to the stage,” said Frantz, speaking with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“His excuse for leaving was he was ‘sick of playing for people who had their feet in the mud,’” he continued. “It wasn’t even a particularly muddy day there. There might have been some mud in front of the stage. He just didn’t want to do the band anymore.”
Tina Weymouth called the show their “absolute worst gig ever” in a 2011 interview with The Guardian. Speaking about David Byrne’s comment about “people in the mud,” Weymouth explained, “David had a lot of temper tantrums when he got to be a big star. He couldn’t stop it; fame and the whole diva thing was just overwhelming for him.” Allegedly, people in the crowd were also booing and throwing things at the stage after Byrne called attention to two girls protesting for the Maori indigenous rights movement in New Zealand.
Additionally, the band threw a party after the final show, but Byrne didn’t show up. After a set like that, the mood already wasn’t too cheerful, said Weymouth. “It was just this really sad, dismal affair where people got quietly drunk in the corner,” she recalled. “The tour ended not with a bang but a whimper. It was awful that everything we’d been working toward ended like that.”
Featured Image by Sire Records/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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