When telling colleagues and friends that I was going to see The National last night, for their final show of their “Trouble Will Find Me” world tour, almost all of them gave me the same one word answer.
“…….Who……???”
On this evidence* it seems that The National might just be the World’s Biggest Unknown Band.
Perhaps the first rule of The National is that you don’t talk about The National? You can probably guess the second rule…
This polarisation of fame is not a unique phenomenon. Band Aid 30 featured personalities that were famous to some but were otherwise obscure to the general public (no I don’t mean Midge Ure) including “YouTubers” that meant nothing to anyone over the age of sixteen, but who are legends in the school playgrounds across the UK. So too, The National who are a beloved institution amongst the hipster / indie community, if we can use those words without being disrespectful, and seemingly very few others. Indeed, with Wild Beasts, The National and Sufjan Stevens all present at the O2 last night, Hackney must have resembled a ghost town.
Let’s just recap for the uninitiated what we know about The National:
- They formed in 1999 in Cincinnati, Ohio,
- There’s two sets of brothers in the band,
- They’ve recorded six albums,
- There’s a couple of documentary films about them,
- And they’ve just sold out the 20,000 seat O2 Arena in London.
- And all this without appearing on Graham Norton, or posting unwanted downloads into your iTunes account.
They have sold out the O2 Arena the old fashioned way. Writing and performing songs that people want to hear. They let the music, as the saying goes, do the talking.
Last night’s performance showcased songs mainly from “Trouble Will Find Me”, “High Violet” and “Boxer”. Berninger is a magnetic performer, flanked by a twin guitar attack from the Dessner brothers. The sound is fleshed out impressively by a brass section which works especially well on the more rousing Arcade Fire-esque songs such as “Mistaken for Strangers”, an early highlight.
Joined onstage for the whole set by “Boxer” collaborator Sufjan Stevens, the band appeared genuinely humbled to be playing such a huge show at the O2 Arena.
“Thirteen years ago we played a sh*tty show in London – and got signed” explained front man Matt Berninger as he spoke of the band’s London connection.
The set peaked with “About Today” and “Fake Empire”. The only way to top that was for Berninger to go walk-about, and this he did a couple of times during Terrible Love.
Last week Jack White played the O2 and tried to create the feel of a club gig by bringing his audience with him in spirit. Matt Berninger achieved the same thing in a more effective way – by joining the crowd himself, all the way to the back of the Arena. The audience lapped it up. All 20,000 of them…
* I’ll concede it was a small sample size. Probably wouldn’t be acceptable in a clinical trial to use that size sample and expect immediate clearance from the authorities. So strictly speaking the headline to this piece should read “The National: The World’s Biggest Unknown Band On An Anecdotal Level, But Not Scientific Basis, Which May Or May Not Be Confirmed After Further Tests”. I think the headline I settled on is snappier though, if less robust.
Set list:
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Don’t Swallow the Cap
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I Should Live in Salt
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Mistaken for Strangers
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Bloodbuzz Ohio
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Sea of Love
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Demons
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Hard to Find
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Afraid of Everyone
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Conversation 16
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Squalor Victoria
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I Need My Girl
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This Is the Last Time
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Guest Room
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All the Wine
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Abel
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Slow Show
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Sorrow
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Pink Rabbits
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England
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Graceless
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About Today
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Fake EmpireEncore:
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Ada
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Mr. November
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Terrible Love
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Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
Every record tells a story 
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