The National are like a coupla hipsters lead by the hero of an Ingmar Bergman movie at Barclay Center Wednesday night. Fourteen years into thew existential break down of a rock band has lead them to here: signifying in Brooklyn and switching up their small time catechisms in a big time concert show . Matt Berninger maybe could fall asleep at night as a rock and roll star.
Or a purveyor of Berlin era Bowie without the synths, as he wades into the GA floor and smothered in adoration of the fans during the encore: “I won’t fuck us over” he promises, in the midst of much love and the fans return the compliment. “Mr. November” has come of age. And the song is maybe a bit more upobeat than usual but not untypical of the National as a whole: the twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner clang their guitar like wall of soft rippled banks of guitar and Matt builds a head of disquieting steam.
It is a formula that didn’t work for me at all for years. A song here and there but the indie rockers National unlikely raise to fame and floods sure took me to surprise. They repaid close attention with a built in obsolescence. Formed from the remnants of a college lo-fi band, the National clambered upon Matt’s baritone and rode it quietly though the hills of sophomoric angst. I saw them once maybe 8 years ago and nearly fell asleep from boredom. But in 2010, their recherchez to Cincinnati perdu “Blood Buzz, Ohio” was a pretty good single and in time “I still owe money to the money to the money I owe” seemed to signify more than it said. This year found “Don’t Swallow The Cap”, “I Should Live In Salt” and a couple of other songs on the cleverly named Trouble Will Find Me break through their melodic neutrality.
I got to Barclay’s in time for lo-fi band Youith Lagoon, whom I quite like, not reach me in the last row of the Arena. Yes, last row. Now here is a clue, pop pickers. If you have last row tickets at Barclay’s change em. Which I did, I left the place and bought another ticket in the 10th row in time to be pleasantly assumed by the sometimes pretty and sometimes buzzy band. I wouldn’t mind catching em again because, definitely the venue did them no favors.
The first song, a disappointingly rusty “Don’t Swallow The Cap”, had me afraid the National were going suffer the same fate. But they settled in nearly immediately. “Blood buzz Ohio” builds to an extended coda which rattles the song though not loud, it is fairly furious and “Sea Of Love” is a sort of bipolar passive aggressive conduit for would be hipsters. It is Middle America’s idea of a nightmare.
Given the type of music on view, sorta indie ambient sink song as anthem personified by “Abel’ with everybody singing “my mind’s not right” with everybody singing along to the sort of thought you shouldn’t really be writing even in your 20s, no less your 30s which is where they appear to be, it is pretty good and the set doesn’t sag.
If it works it is because none of us ever got out of High School, let alone college, and this sort of heartache headache vision of pop is always going to find a home among the permanent damaged, meaning just about everybody. The songs can be quietly brooding or build into a quasi jam wall of strings with bass, two guitars and violins. Matt himself isn’t a natural leader, whether telling guest St. Vincent to stop kissing everybody after she joined the band on “This Is The Last Time” or wandering east to west while the band pours at a song ending, or reaching down to the mic to spit out a lyric before straightening back up, he is a strange stick to whittle. But despite the quiet stormness of his barimonotone or the bands bland benevolent malignancy, Matt is more credible then Brandon Flowers was at the same venue in May.
And anyway, any one who sings about his fears at fatherhood or claims to be missing his wife is gonna lead a rock and roll band just fine.
Grade: B+