LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio (SCPR), a member-supported public media network. Hear our news on-air at our partner site:
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
LAist reader Craig showed up at the Arclight for the Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense on the wrong night (Tuesday) only to find it wasn't playing and was furious at us. Don't worry, Craig, even if you had shown up on Wednesday, you wouldn't have gotten in (update: Craig did better than we did and made it in). Tickets for the Jonathan Demme directed concert film have been mostly sold out for the last two weeks. LAist couldn't get in either so we decided to do the next best thing: watch it at home with friends.
The music doc is available from Palm Pictures and features some things you couldn't have seen at the Arclight screening like two extra performances bringing the song total up to 19 and David Byrne interviewing David Byrne (with multiple costume changes) about the tour and the music and the big suit. And, of course, a montage. We love a montage.
We also love to eat.
We started the night with snacks and beer. BevMo always seems too empty to be successful but the employees sure are happy. They were singing along to the music blaring over their speakers as we decided between the beer nuts, chips, or carb heavy snack mixes. The wasabi peas would not be denied. We also got vodka and soda but after drinking two of those, we completely forgot about taking pictures.
The beer was Stella Artois. We're not beer drinkers but we don't mind the cerveza and Stella is an excellent choice. This was our beer of choice when we were at SXSW as well. It went down smooth as Tina Weymouth took center stage (while David Byrne snuck off backstage to put on the Big Suit) to lead the band in her Tom Tom Club hit "Genius of Love". LAist has such a crush on 1984 Tina Weymouth.
The most outstanding part of our evening, however, were the fancy sandwiches made by our friend who just so happens to be the executive pastry chef at Dragoin Santa Monica. The crusty bread is filled with steak, grilled onions, goat cheese, fresh spinach, and bacon. We've got some jalapeño chips and a pickle on the side. We are very happy. He also made chocolate covered cream puffs but we were far too drunk on vodka and sweet cream to take a picture. We laughed about the dancing, the outfits, the audience, and David Byrne's very ostrich like body. We danced and sang along ourselves.
We love the Arclight but there's no way we would've had that kind of quality evening sitting in one of their darkened theaters.