The Books & José González, Bowery Ballroom, 3.24.06

The danger of concert fatigue crept into my mind earlier in the week when I realized I would be hitting up five concerts in five nights. Already over the last nine months I've felt a bit less excited about concerts than I did back when they were a rare treat rather than a weekly habit. But as the exhilaration of the concert experience has faded, so has my fear of hating a show. If that Animal Collective show had been the only concert I made it to one semester in college, I'd be pissed, but now I can just write it off and hope the next night will turn out better.

This was sort of a tricky show in my mind. I love Veneer, but I had heard José González wasn't terribly exciting in concert, and I never imagined he could be. Meanwhile, I'm only vaguely familiar with The Books; I occasionally, oddly get "The Lemon of Pink" stuck in my head, but I know almost nothing about The Books or the rest of their catalogue.

The first opener was Death Vessel, a nice little alt-country outfit.



José González came on next. Not surprisingly, most people seemed to be there to see him. He played straight through his set with little crowd interaction--understandable, since English isn't his first (or maybe even second) language. Still, hearing "Crosses" and "Heartbeat" live was great; his songs sound so perfect on the album, so it's really impressive to see him recreate them unaided by studio production. For his encore (this might be the first time I've ever seen an opener gain an encore) he played his cover of Massive Attack's "Teardrop," which I've been sweating for months (see also House).



The Books are voracious seekers of audio and video samples, and the result is this beautifully absurd Electronicana performance. Despite my fear of concert fatigue, this last show of the week turned out to be the best. From the rich-men-with-bowler-hats montage to the odd advice, "Look at it this way: you may fall and break your leg," we laughed, we cried, we got a cover of Nick Drake's "Cello Song."