Something’s up with the booking office at Rams Head Live. Everyone was sort of scratching their heads at the Dan Deacon/DJ Dog Dick booking a couple weeks back, but it seems to have been part of a larger trend over at Rams Head.
Sure, you can still see the dude from Staind or Robert Randolph & the Family Band, but Wednesday’s show from the Books was another step in the right direction.
Which isn’t to say that the corporate-rock arena has totally figured out how to wear the arthouse hat yet.
The dominant features of Wednesday’s show were little signs of awkwardness showing that the Testosterone-oozing venue still can’t totally handle the subtleties of more subdued acts.
The show began with indie band Black Heart Procession opening to a mostly-empty room.
Two long-haired, bearded guys in dark clothes came out, brandished a guitar and a keyboard, and slipped in and out of a set of mopey tunes centered around the words “distance,” “time,” “memory,” and “you.”
The two sad-looking dudes hovered around 80 bpm for the duration of the set, occasionally bringing out a wistful singing saw or Gene from the Books to lightly shred on violin.
Gone as unobtrusively as they’d arrived, Rams Head promptly piped in some soulful radio schlock and the roughly 80 attendees collectively took a cross-legged seat on the venue’s floor.
The most salient feature of a Books live show is certainly the visual component.
Over the band’s sample-driven Americana, projections of home videos, instructional VHS cuts, and text were played on a large screen behind the band.
In a huge, well-lit room this does not have the same effect as it might in an auditorium-seating theatre, especially with the sound keyed down as far as it was.
It seemed like Rams Head thought that by turning down the volume they could match the gentler side of the Books, when in reality the show called for a much fuller immersion than most other concerts.
Instead Paul de Jong’s cello was barely audible, and the rest of the instrumentation was muddled together.
Fortunately, however, the Books managed to carry the show, nonetheless, by turns, having the audience laugh out loud or grow attentively silent in accord with the band’s projections and performance.
The highlight of the show was the last song before the encore, “Classy Penguin,” off the band’s 2007 Play All DVD, for which Zammuto’s brother, Mikey, (of “Mikey Bass” fame from Read, Eat, Sleep) joined the trio onstage.
The projections were home videos of the Zammutos, tracing them through history at turns both poignant and hilarious. One great shot included a teenage, acne-covered Nick watching Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on television.
After an encore of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” (de Jong having introduced the song and clearly enjoying his chance to showcase his abilities as cellist, if not as public speaker) the show was over, and the modest crowd dispersed.
The Books did not disappoint, if the venue somewhat did, but hopefully for Baltimore concert-goers, Rams Head will figure out how to rightly fill its place as a substantial venue for acts less Aaron Lewis and more “Book”-ish.
