Have you seen David Byrne on his current tour? I have. It's something to see. I'd never seen Byrne live before last year, though I'd crushed a whole lot of film of his performances over the decades. Byrne's current live show is a truly staggering ensemble act. There's nothing stationary. Everyone keeps moving, and everyone has headset mics. The backup singers are also dancers, and Byrne and the musicians do choreography with them. The drummers all have marching-band rigs. The whole stage is a screen, with different song-appropriate footage absolutely surrounding the performers. The tour comes to theaters that would usually host touring musicals. When they do Talking Heads songs, I felt my soul levitating. Last night's episode of Stephen Colbert's Late Show had a version of that live show, with that ensemble.
On Colbert, Byrne performed "When We Are Singing," one of the songs from his 2025 album Who Is The Sky? That's not my favorite Byrne song, but it's amazing to see him and his whole crew moving all around in their matching blue jumpsuits. Byrne also sat for an interview with Stephen Colbert, but it wasn't just with Stephen Colbert. Byrne also sat down with his old buddy John Mulaney.
Mulaney, a talk show host in his own right, was also a guest on last night's Colbert, and it seems like the double-booking was sheer coincidence. Byrne and Mulaney have known each other for about a decade, since Byrne was a guest on Mulaney and Nick Kroll's The Oh, Hello Show! on Broadway. Byrne later appeared in Mulaney's Netflix kids' special The Sack Lunch Bunch and did music for Mulaney's stand-up special Baby J. When Mulaney hosted SNL in early 2020, Byrne was the musical guest — his first performance on that show in 31 years. So when Byrne did his interview with Colbert and talked about his current stage show, Mulaney stayed out on the couch with him, and all three guys got to be charming on TV together for a few minutes. Watch Byrne's performance and his interview below.
In addition to being a great stand-up comic and a mold-breaking talk show host, Mulaney is a hall-of-fame talk show guest, so we might as well include his interview in this post, too. Sitting down with Colbert, Mulaney talked about watching Supreme Court hearings live and touring Graceland with his four-year-old, and he gave Colbert a check for $750 because Colbert won't have a job soon. Mulaney also talked a bit about Byrne: "I can't believe I know him... He's a wonderful, nice man. I look up to him so much." Here's that:
Check out Rachel Brown's We've Got A File On You interview with David Byrne here. Go see Byrne and/or John Mulaney live.
