A great film if you're a David Byrne or a Talking Heads fan.

I should prelude this by saying the band is superb, the songs sound superb and audio gets a solid 9. However the overall product left me scratching my head too often.I always have respect for artists who try to push the boundaries of what they do later in their careers, but the problem here is that Ride, Rise, Roar isn't really that different. It's like a karaoke version of Stop Making Sense. The whole premise of the visual experience is dancing, but SMS already had choreographed on-stage dancing. The difference is that it was more natural and uniform and rhythmically in-tempo with the hypnotic music. This film features what look like three Stanford grads spazz dancing for an hour and a half. It doesn't ad any deeper meaning to the melodic or lyrical content. Instead of interpretive dance they might as well have just hired actors to pantomime scenes. What I think this project forgot was that David Byrne was and will always be the centerpiece, even in the Talking Heads days. This concert concept tries desperately to make you interested in these dancers who get in the way of the only person on stage with actual presence. Stop Making Sense got it right, Byrne danced and everyone else mimicked his movements, creating a giant framework that directed the audience attention perfectly. RRR is an on-stage free-for-all.

David Byrne is the man!

It's no "Stop Making Sense" but what is.

Probably doesn't show enough of the creative process to be a real insight into David Byrne and cutting away from the concert footage to interviews about the creative process diminishes the excitement of the concert. What it did do was make me want to buy some more Talking Heads CDs. And that's not a bad thing.

The director could have been a little less fancy and let us see the dancers clearly. That was sort of the point.

From a musical and performance point of view this film is great. However, whilst the interviews with Byrne, the band members, dancers, Eno and the production crew are interesting, mixing them in between the songs disrupts the mood, taking you out of the concert experience. On DVD/Blu-Ray they really should have been made available just as extra material to make it easier to rewatch the concert. Now onto the subject of having dancers with the band: They were a little distracting at times but seeing them at an actual live show was great. From a fixed position in the crowd you could watch either the overall choreography during a song or focus on the movement of individual dancers. Watching the film, with its multiple camera angles, close ups and cuts, you lose track of what is going on. And just when you start to follow a particular set of steps, an edit jumps you somewhere else. So for me 'Ride, Rise, Roar' is good but a little frustrating.

For David Byrne fans great music. For others a great insight into the staging of a show and how the lines between musicians, dancers and choreographers begin to blur as the set moves from rehearsal to performance. Byrne drops the veil on the show but it becomes more interesting as a result. And the music is great!!!

Iâ(TM)m not really a modern dance fan, so I admit: I was wary of watching Ride, Rise, Roar â" a documentary/concert film that blends together images of The Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno tour and short interviews with the dancers and musicians.That said; it somehow worked. Watching those dancers move to the beat of songs Iâ(TM)ve always loved while Byrne sang and moved with them was entertaining, fascinating, and at times emotional, and also caused me to dance along in my seat.Director David Hillman Curtis does an excellent job of pacing on-stage action with personal interviews, creating a complete picture of the tour. A must-see for Talking Heads fans, for sure.The only question I have is this: how does David Byrne stay so cool, even when heâ(TM)s bouncing around the stage in a tutu?

If "Ride, Rise, Roar" isn't as dazzling as its predecessor ["Stop Making Sense"] - which caught a cutting-edge pop band at the very peak of their creative powers - it remains a largely pleasurable experience, and actually retains one advantage, in having the whole of the Byrne back catalogue to choose from: good news for fans of "Road to Nowhere", "I Zimbra" ("Sense"'s hidden track, here given a proper airing), and the newly mellow, melodic, Radio 2-friendly direction Byrne is presently pursuing. If you were one of those annoyed by the way Oliver Stone crowbarred some of these tracks into "Wall Street 2" with the aim of making the credit crunch slip down a little easier, it'll be a doubly valuable artefact.

With only his silver-fox thatch betraying the years since classic Stop Making Sense, Byrne wriggles and writhes through a groovy set of polyrhythmic pop.

Entertaining behind-the-scenes music tour documentary film, enlivened by some terrific songs and some amusingly offbeat dance routines...

Curtis's film is more a series of snapshots, the flow frustratingly interrupted by lengthy interview segments that might have best been set aside as DVD extras.

Byrne comes across as an affable, watchable performer, always up for a new idea or three.