Gig Of 2013 had to be The National at Alexandra Palace, a band I’d wanted to see live since hearing the stately piano and fanfare of “Fake Empire” and its parent album, Boxer, in 2007. The intervening years had given this desire time to grow - The National, themselves growing bigger and better, slowly amassing one of the finest catalogues in modern rock. No Scottish shows were announced in the initial promotion of their latest LP, Trouble Will Find Me; my friends and I had to go to them.
The London audience that night were treated to a generous, triumphant two-hour set, complete with string section, swirling visuals and an unplugged version of “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” to close. Lead singer Matt Berninger, swigging from a bottle of red wine throughout, did his trademark slalom through the crowd. Twice.
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Eight months on, and I'm off on another National pilgrimage - this time to the Usher Hall in Edinburgh (Guys, I love you, and, yes, the travelling arguably adds something to the overall experience, but a Glasgow date at some point wouldn't go a-miss, eh?).
No new music has surfaced since the Ally Pally gig, but we have had Mistaken For Strangers - a rockumentary made by Tom Berninger, Matt's brother, following the band on their High Violet tour. Mistaken For Strangers is less a film about The National and
their music and more a psychological profiling of Tom (lay-about, heavy-rock
lover, aspiring movie-maker, hopeless roadie), focusing in on his
relationship with - and jealousy towards - his successful rock-star sibling. Indeed, most of Tom's valuable one-on-one interview time with the other band members is taken up with him determined to know "what's the deal with Matt??". It's touching, truthful and uplifting-in-a-melancholy-kind-of-way, as you might hope from something National-related. But it also made me laugh louder and more consistently than any other film I've seen this year. Didn't expect that!
A listen through of Trouble Will Find Me after time away confirms it as one of The National's best: strong, direct songs (the unorthodox time signatures on "I Should Live In Salt" and "Demons" are as tricksy as the LP gets) which flow seamlessly into each other; more open both spatially (compared to the claustrophobic High Violet) and emotionally (Matt's lyrics less cryptic, his vocals less mumbled); the sound of a band who know who they are and what they do best. "Pink Rabbits" and "Hard To Find" combine to form one of the most devastating and satisfying endings to an album that I can remember.
"To be honest, I'll be more than happy if it's exactly
the same set as last time", I say on the train through to Edinburgh.
And that's pretty much what we get. A near-identical set-list heaving with high-points
from the last four albums, the more overtly anthemic moments from Trouble Will Find Me and High Violet meshing successfully with the
twitchier Boxer and Alligator tracks. “Don’t Swallow The Cap”
and “I Should Live In Salt” next to “Mistaken For Strangers” and “Squalor Victoria”.
"Bloodbuzz Ohio", probably their most famous tune, is dispatched with
four songs in - plenty more where that came from.
The opening 20 minutes are very good, but I can’t help
feeling that something is lacking in comparison to the London show – the
guitars and vocals are a little too low in the mix perhaps, or Matt’s slightly
subdued.
Then, suddenly, everything seems to shift up a gear – and I don’t mean in terms of volume (though “Abel” is loud and electrifying, Berninger letting rip on its “my
mind’s not right” chorus). It’s more about momentum. The cumulative effect of these superb
songs, swelling one after another, is to create something incredibly intense
and moving. You’re swept away on a wave of emotion, a tide of euphoria, a Sea
of Love.
There are minor changes to the set-list. “Anyone’s Ghost” and Catching Fire contribution “Lean” both make way. An unnamed new track – Future Island verses giving way to British Sea Powered blasts of noise – comes and goes, leaving little impression.
The delicate piano intro of "Hard To Find" begins, however, and I instantly feel myself welling up. Fuck! They’re playing that! I adore the radiant sadness of the slower National numbers (see “Start A War”, "City Middle", "Slipped"), but they don’t always lend themselves to being played in large halls, their subtleties often lost. “Hard To Find” sounds perfect tonight though, its lyrics crystal clear, the “they can all just kiss off into the air” refrain a proper throw-your-arm-round-your-mate moment.
“Conversation 16” also gets an outing – it must surely bring perverse joy to the band that they can instigate a mass sing-along of the lines “I was afraid I’d eat your brains…'cause I'm evil”.
This dark humour and wit - present in much of The National’s work - is often missed by casual listeners. Like The Smiths, they have been dismissed as miserable and depressing - predominantly I think due to Berninger's deep grumble of a delivery. But the lyrics to "Karen" ("It's a common fetish for a doting man / To ballerina on the coffee table, cock in hand") and "All The Wine" ("I'm put together beautifully...a perfect piece of ass...a wingspan unbelievable, I'm a festival, I'm a parade"), to give just two examples, are genuinely funny; "When I walk into a room I do not light it up / Fuck!" from "Demons" is positively Morrissey-esque.
Now in his early-40s, Berninger is a little older than your average alternative rock front-man. He’s a father, a family man, and this – along with the experience which comes from a hard-won success after years of working, touring and struggling – brings a wise, worldliness to his words. His takes on life’s loves ("What I feel now about you then, I'm just glad I can explain / You're beautiful and close and young / In those ways we were the same") , pains ("Sorry I hurt you, but they say love is a virtue don't they?"), hopes ("You know I dreamed about you, for 29 years before I saw you") and disappointments ("We expected something, something better than before, we expected something more") are more-often-than-not considered, poetic and right. At his best, he's Guy Garvey without the "oh my giddy aunt" chumminess; the equal of Nick Cave or Moz.
Another aspect of The National that may surprise some is just how guitar-orientated they are live, how much they rock. On record, the voice and drums tend to drive the tracks, but tonight the guitar-playing brothers, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, are free to elongate solos and add licks to the likes of "Afraid Of Everyone" and "Graceless". They end “Terrible Love” on separate sides of the stage, in identical poses, their guitars held aloft.
The gig closes, as it did at Alexandra Palace, with Berninger turning the microphone on the crowd for “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” (as captured in the video below). Near a cappella, with the band and the fans giving everything they've got left, it's a spine-tingling, fitting finale - despite the fact that many of us need to brush up on our second verse.
A couple of songs previous, Matt Berninger had been propelled into the crowd by “Mr. November”. He made his way to the rear of the venue and then cut back diagonally across the floor. Tracing his mic lead which stretched out above, we knew he was close. And, suddenly, there he was. Racing like a pro, not missing a beat. We patted him on the shoulder as he flashed past, then turned to each other and let out schoolboy whoops of excitement.
For that briefest of moments, he had come to us.
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