The Books played Bowery Ballroom
Even after The Books started touring as a duo, they’ve always been good at delivering their experimental songs live. Nick has an understated, calm voice faithful to the recordings while Paul’s cello serves to add improvisational fluidity. Ever since their collection of found-video collages began to take shape, however, the structure of their recent shows has been somewhat standardized. It was a great delight, then, to be surprised during the encore with a rarely performed “Getting the Job Done” from 2002’s Thought for Food. Perhaps it was the addition of opener Todd Reynolds on the violin that allowed it to happen. They referred to the shortened version as a “half” song, an amazing one at that, and Nick can really sing that fast.
More after the jump.
Nick’s younger brother Mike has traditionally appeared to play bass on the song he wrote, “The Classy Penguin”. Since his absence at the Wordless show, his fun personality was a refreshing return. The song itself is a blast, with a matching video that includes hilarious bits of home video footage of the band members as kids. This features one clip of “Smells Like a Teen Spirit”, over which young Nick’s head slowly floats from the bottom of the screen.
For the first song in the encore, “Be Good To Them Always”, the combination of Todd Reynolds’ violin and Paul de Jong’s violent cello had a chilling effect. Reynolds, however, also got an addition of an elaborate, twangy solo that came close to clashing. It might’ve flown anywhere else, but I wasn’t too enthusiastic about in the context of The Books, mainly because subtlety has always been key in their music. As for Todd’s own set, he’s gifted with a grip over the violin, for sure, and he played many songs that showed off this incontestable fact. But perhaps it was too self-evident, and I almost longed for humbleness in the music itself (Todd himself seemed humbled enough).
The first “opening act” was fitting, though not musical. Rich Remsberg presented his impressive collection of found photographs, and concluded that it was the mystery that appealed to him, not the fact.
Bowery Ballroom
July 7, 2007
