Live Report: David Byrne burns down the house at 3Arena

When I interviewed David Byrne in late 2018 around the time of a previous barnstorming 3Arena set, the singer noted his manager had recently told him he was enjoying a “Leonard Cohen moment” as a live draw.

The parallels are obvious - like the Canadian legend, in his later career, Byrne has attracted a surge of interest, with audiences clamouring to see him perform highlights from his formidable catalogue. As documented in a recent episode of Hot Press Classics on Stop Making Sense by your correspondent and film expert Wayne Byrne, the ex-Talking Heads man is one of a handful of acts over the last 40-odd years - along with U2, the Stone, Nine Inch Nails and a few others - to have truly elevated live performance to an art-form.

David Byrne at 3Arena March 13 2026. Credit: Lee Aaron Byrne

He impressively continues to explore new ground, with the singer leading an onstage troupe who stand and perform through the whole set, Byrne occasionally leading them through electrifying choreographed routines, as the surrounding screens display an assortment of cool visuals. As ever, the performer - who secured his Irish passport a number of years back - is very at home in Dublin, enjoying a warm rapport with the sold-out crowd.

Early highlights include the gorgeous opening ‘Heaven’, a scintillating ‘And She Was’ and a wildly infectious ‘Houses In Motion’. At one point, the singer pauses to address the crowd, alluding variously to house prices, Joyce’s Martello tower and politics, his speech ending with him nodding towards a picture on the screen of Boris Johnson in full Dad’s Army get-up. “I don’t have anything to say about him,” quips Byrne to huge cheers.

Indeed, there’s always been a political dimension to Byrne’s work, with one of the most starkly resonant lines of the night coming from ‘Nothing But Flowers’, in a lyric that also provided one of the epigraphs to Bret Easton Ellis’s equally prescient American Psycho: “As things fell apart, nobody paid much attention”.

There’s more socio-political commentary on the rip-roaring ‘Life During Wartime’, the jeers at footage of Ice crackdowns giving way to huge cheers as the screens display the famous clip of a protestor giving Ice goons the run around before taking off on his bike. As impeccable as Byrne’s collected works are, it’s interesting that the favourites from Stop Making Sense continue to generate the biggest response - a tribute to the ongoing influence of Jonathan Demme’s landmark concert film.

The first mass singalong occurs during ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’, one of the most affecting love songs you’ll ever hear, while there’s another huge reaction to ‘Slippery People’, which somehow sounds even funkier and more irresistible than on record. Towards the end of the main set, the whole crowd is up, dancing and singalong to an epic ‘Psycho Killer’, and that’s how everyone stays from there til the end, as the band reel off a succession of other classics, including sublime takes on ‘Once In A Lifetime’ and - for the encore - ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House’ and the suitably titled ‘Burning Down The House’.

David Byrne at 3Arena March 13 2026. Credit: Lee Aaron Byrne

It was awesome conclusion to another unforgettable concert from Byrne, and if you were one of those who couldn’t make it - he is soon to return for another Dublin date at St. Anne’s Park. It’s most definitely among the unmissable shows of the summer.

David Byrne plays St. Anne’s Park, Dublin on June 7.