Word: staging
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...expect a Books show to be. It took them five years and three well-received albums to make it to this, the second date on their first-ever U.S. tour—for good reason. Their releases are meticulous, alien, and almost impossible to imagine taking form on stage: spare collisions of folk and studio where left-field vocal samples interrupt twilight plucks and crescendos are spliced and diced...
...first surprise of a night that held many, most of the impressive apparatus on stage turned out to belong to openers Keith Fullerton Whitman and Greg Davis, who hunched over looping decks to produce artfully droning, clicking, shearing, squealing ambient suites. As the genial, bearded gents accreted countless sound fragments—seemingly random shards that synched perfectly with the epileptic video collages projected above them—they accomplished the estimable feat of getting the audience genuinely excited for the comparatively familiar pop craft of the Books...
...whose studio recordings often sound so divorced from any physical presence, the Books’ humble humanity was charming. Unused to applause, the band members grinned shyly as every song earned hearty appreciation. Towards the end of the set, Zammuto’s younger brother Mikey joined them on stage wearing a backwards baseball cap and shouting “Go Sox!” before a nimble tumble through “Classy Penguin,” a Mikey’s original composition. As Zammuto home videos were projected and the Books continued to play as a foursome...
...onstage, the Co. has a reserved presence. Guitarist Jason Groth—who supported Molina’s more vertical soloing with a chicken-pickin’ country feel and an insistent rhythmic sensibility—was the most animated as he pogo-danced around the stage. Keyboardist Michael Kapinus was an undeniably brilliant sonic colorist, his warm organ tones augmenting the guitars and lap steel...
...there was so much more spontaneous and engaged than what I’ve seen here,” he says. “The theater is much more topical, exciting, and political. They were so much more creative and complex, taking bigger chances and risks on stage,” he adds...