Now Reading: Big Ears 2026 Day 1 & 2: David Byrne, Dirty Three, John Zorn, Tunde Adebimpe, Arthur Russell tribute more
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Big Ears 2026 Day 1 & 2: David Byrne, Dirty Three, John Zorn, Tunde Adebimpe, Arthur Russell tribute more
Big Ears 2026 Day 1 & 2: David Byrne, Dirty Three, John Zorn, Tunde Adebimpe, Arthur Russell tribute more
As a general rule, the noon slot at a festival is not exactly desirable; audiences don’t tend to show up till mid-afternoon, leaving acts to play to just a few people. Not so at Big Ears, where they program some of the most anticipated sets of the festival in those opening slots and keep things interesting and exciting all day. There’s no other festival like it in the US.
There was a line around the block to see John Zorn’s 12 PM performance at Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre on Friday. This was the first set in a two-day takeover of the Bijou, and a performance of “Masada 1” with the original lineup of Zorn on sax, Greg Cohen on bass, Dave Douglas on trumpet, and Joey Baron on drums.
The line to get in proved too long for this too-late writer; after a certain point you have to decide if it’s better to go see something else. Luckily, at Big Ears there’s always something interesting just around the corner. For me it was Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch, who was performing solo at St. John’s Cathedral. When Bärtsch plays the piano, he plays all of it, with one hand on the keys and the other inside on the strings themselves, creating atmospheric touches like storm effects. I was sad to miss Masada, but this was a nice way to ease into a very full day of music.
The main event on Friday for me was David Byrne’s second night at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium. A creative continuation of his American Utopia show, the Who is the Sky? Tour has Byrne backed by 12 untethered musicians and singers who also do a lot of dancing. The twist this time is that the big black box they play in is made entirely of LED screens, including the floor, allowing for some clever visual accompaniment — including one segment by John Wilson and a part of the show specific to the city they’re in. The song selection is great, with lots of Talking Heads material but also choice solo cuts like “Strange Overtones” from his 2008 album with Brian Eno. Byrne remains an iconoclast and a consummate entertainer.
The Byrne show was the only time at the fest so far that I allowed myself to watch a full set. Friday had me running all over downtown Knoxville. My other favorite Friday moment was the Arthur Russell tribute at The Greyhound (an abandoned Greyhound bus station that Big Ears is using for shows this year). Specifically, Wild Up: Arthur Russell’s 24 to 24 is a celebration of Russell’s disco material like Dinosaur L, with the stage set up in the middle of the terminal and filled with percussionists, cellists, violinists, keyboardists, guitarists, and more, all led by artistic director and conductor Christopher Rountree. I walked in midway through and it was a full-on dance party — the beat never stopped the whole time I was there. Joyous and surprising.
Also joyous were Australia’s Dirty Three — wildman violinist/pianist Warren Ellis, guitarist Mick Turner, and drummer Jim White — who filled the Tennessee Theatre for their late-night set. They have such a unique chemistry and swagger and are a force of nature when they get together. They walked on to Boz Scaggs’ “Lido Shuffle,” with Ellis immediately hyping up the crowd, and kept the energy set to “wild” the whole night as we basked in their controlled chaos.
Other stuff on Friday: Hannah Cohen brought her brand of lush, ’70s-inspired pop to The Standard; I caught a half-hour of Laurie Anderson’s thoughtful, funny, and occasionally tuneful multimedia project Laurie Anderson: What War Is This? What Time Is It? at the Tennessee Theatre; Pino Palladino & Blake Mills laid down some very tasty grooves at the Mill & Mine with drummer Chris Dave and woodwinds player Sam Gendell; Michigan’s His Name Is Alive highlighted their early-’90s 4AD albums at The Jig & Reel; and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley played a surprise set by Jackson Terminal that brought this writer back to seeing them do experimental sets at NYC’s The Cooler.
Big Ears started on Thursday and, due to circumstances beyond my control, I only caught a few things. TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe performed his solo debut, Thee Black Boltz, in full at Mill & Mine. It was a true solo performance, with Tunde playing songs from a boombox, a la Stop Making Sense, but he held the crowd on his own.
I also saw Ches Smith’s Clone Row — featuring Mary Halvorson, Liberty Ellman, and Nick Dunston — at The Standard, and Ches and Mary also played in Marc Ribot’s SHREK at the Bijou. The SHREK project was Ribot’s first proper band of his own following stints with The Lounge Lizards, Tom Waits, and Elvis Costello, and this Big Ears show featured original bassist Sebastian Steinberg, Smith on drums/vibraphone, Mary on guitar, and drummer Chad Taylor as they played selections from the project’s ’90s albums, which ranged from punk to “new music” compositions.
There’s still lots more to come over the final two days of Big Ears, including MJ Lenderman, lots more Zorn, Don Was, Robert Plant, Thurston Moore & Shabaka Hutchings, Perfume Genius, Cymande, Flying Lotus, Madison Cunningham, SML, Blind Boys of Alabama, Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles, Richard Dawson, and tons more.
Check out a few photos from Friday Night at Big Ears below…
