Revenge of the Bookeaters @ Beacon Theatre - 8.26.07

Well, this was a night for surprises, good and bad. I realized that I actually quite liked Jim James, lead singer for My Morning Jacket (whom I'd previously seen a few times and just despised), in fact he pretty much stole the show in my opinion. And I also found out that sometimes no matter how much everyone complains, assholes will still prevail and go on to ruin another evening. But I'll save that for a postscript later. On to the music...

A.C. Newman (of the New Pornographers) started out the show, which was a benefit to raise funds for 826NYC, an organization founded by Dave Eggers (yeah, that one) to help tutor and encourage kids to write.

http://www.826nyc.org/

I went last year as well and had a lot of fun, so I figured this would be a repeat. Fun evening, good cause, great acts.

I wasn't quite as familiar with as many of this year's artists as I was with last year's - David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, Jon Stewart, John Hodgman and the inimitable Sarah Vowell (amongst others), who I think was the only repeat offender present at this year's show.

So anyway, Newman started out the show and I quickly remembered why I'd liked the NP's last album so much. I think he mostly did his own solo stuff, two stood out: Come Crash, which he said he wrote a few years back about an imaginary girl named Christine...whom he would later find and marry :) And Hemophiliac Dream, which by way of a little google search, I found out is actually a cover of a King Missile song. Both were spot on and just beautiful.


Second up was a local band called Grizzly Bear. They looked a bit scared to be in such a venue - the singer admitted being very impressed at being able to perform at the Beacon - and looked just a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. But I thought he quickly managed to snag the room's attention - they did one lovely song which he said had been written by his great aunt while pursuing a singing career in NYC. The aunt was now long dead, and in her honor, they thought they'd try it out (for the first time live) at the benefit. I think it was called Darla - it was very sweet.


And then Feist came on. Which had been the one person I was looking forward to the most before the show began. She was good, did at least one song with Grizzly Bear. And I quite liked her first record (haven't had a chance to listen to the second one yet). But I can't really say she wowed me. No, that was yet to come in the presence of the bearded wonder: Jim James.


Again, like I mentioned before, I'd seen My Morning Jacket (his band) before and had been less than impressed. I don't know if I was maybe ill on those occasions (I saw MMJ open up for the Doves and the Foo Fighters years ago), or just indisposed towards them for whatever reason.


But Jim kicked ass. Amazingly beautiful voice, great threads - dig me that 3-piece suit - and just had the entire audience rapt and on the palm of his hands. And he played the coolest amoeba-shaped instrument ever! Still not quite sure what it was, but I know I want one :) Lovely, lovely, lovely.


We then had a bit of comedy, a 4-person piece exemplifying the effect of tutoring vs. non-tutoring on the life of a fictional George Washington (no relation). This was narrated by Sarah and acted out by Demetri Martin (the evening's emcee), along with Eugene Mirman and Leo Allen. It was just adorable and perfect for the evening. As was Demetri, who did a good job of filling in time during the various band changes.


Kevin Drew (from the Broken Social Scene) played after that, but I honestly can't remember anything about his set. That wasn't necessarily his fault as my wee postscript might explain, but still there wasn't really anything about his songs that stood out for me.


Britt Daniel (he of Spoon) finished off the evening beautifully. I haven't the foggiest as to which songs he actually played, but they were all good. Just great rock and roll. Can't wait to see the whole band later on this Fall.


A.C. Newman then joined him for one last song and the show ended, a bit anti-climatically I thought, but still a great night all around.


Had to include a pic of the adorable Demetri, who in between 'warming up' for the bands, gave us some tips, like unusual marriage proposal ideas, none of which I unfortunately seem to remember. I'll try to dig some up and post later.


P.S. And now for the band of assholes which fucked up the evening for at least a 100 of us up in the balcony. Next time just stay the fuck home and don't submit the rest of us to your infantile shenanigans. No, it's not ok to loudly talk over every single singer. No, it's not ok to loudly pronounce each singer to suck. No, it's not ok to harass the people around you because they dared ask you to please keep it down. And it's definitely not ok to audibly (from the top balcony!) heckle the damn host of a benefit show. There were at least 6-8 separate complaints to the Beacon staff about these idiots (including both me and my friend...individually) and they were visibly admonished at least 3 times. Yet they were never asked to leave. And at the end of the show, my friend and I got to see these jerks joking around with the ushers. But...and wait for it... the best was when we got to the lobby. And saw these poor excuses for human beings actually demanding to have their money back from the front staff. At a benefit. Sigh.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs @ Webster Hall - 8.7.07

Karen O is a force of nature.
I'd only seen the YYYs once before, but it had been a memorable evening filled with screaming and moshing and a whole lot of spitting. For once I'd managed a balcony spot and was glad to have escaped the spitting range of Ms. O.
That wasn't to be feared tonight.

In what seems to have become a rather annoying habit, we got to the venue late. I could hear Karen's shrieks even at the door as I was getting my ticket ripped. But we quickly managed to make our way through Webster Hall's labyrinthine halls and made our way to, if not the front, then relatively near it.

This just made me laugh. Bags used to be checked (they still are, although beats me as to what exactly they're looking for...) for cameras, and much elaborate concealment had to be used in order to sneak in a camera to a show (a friend used to hide it down her crotch). Now with all of our fancy camera cell phones and teeny digital cameras, no one really bothers to do that anymore (with a few glaring exceptions). So what this creates is the scene below:


Looking up and suddenly just seeing a sea of light pollution obscuring the person(s) you've paid good money to come and see live. Everyone feels the need to document every moment of their life (and instantly share it with everyone I know). And hey, I well know I'm moaning and groaning about it and yet here I am blogging away (and now with pics!). But I still think there's a difference between taking a few pics at a show, while trying not to obstruct those around you, and just lifting up your arm and keeping it aloft for the duration of a show. It's become the indie version of the old carny game - whack-a-mole. See how many will pop up during the next song. Enough.


As for what songs they played, beats me. I waited far too long to actually write up this post...or rather, I wrote this up the day after I went to the show. But it was unfortunately eaten up by the damn Internets. Possibly fortunately, since a lot of it was simply a rant about a quite obnoxious girl I had the displeasure of encountering at this show. Still, it was a really good show - Karen kept on mentioning how happy they all were about being in NYC and how much they appreciated our support. She seemed genuinely happy and had her usual boundless energy. If the Yeah Yeah Yeahs ever play anywhere near your town, just run to see them. You'll be telling your kids some day about the time you saw Karen O live.

02.10.08 Update: Seeing as blogger has this fancy thing now that lets you upload some video, here's a teeny clip that I filmed at this show.