Just saw them last night for the first time. Pretty good show overall. They played a decent mix of stuff from both Alligator and Boxer, plus two new songs, one of which was really pretty good.
Opened with "Apartment Story" and went from there into "Brainy", both excellent songs. Played some of their best stuff, and came back for one of the most obvious encores to play "Start A War" (not one of my favorites, but decent) and then end on "Mr. November", which is always an excellent point to end.
There were a couple of songs I would have liked to hear live ("City Middle", "Gospel", "Guest Room" would have all been awesome to hear), but still a good set overall.
What especially struck me with The National live versus listening to their albums is how fucking intense the music/instrumentation is. They borrow a lot of techniques from build & swell, starting simply and bringing forward this wall of sound that shakes the air and even drowns at the vocals at times. When they first started playing it took some time getting used to, because The National is such a vocally oriented band for me, but it really adds to just about everything.
A couple of other neat little bits in there. Probably the high points of the set were "Squalor Victoria", "Racing Like A Pro", "Fake Empire", and "Mr. November", plus the one new song they did that I liked a lot (the name is escaping me at the moment). I was a little disappointed with "Slow Show" - they did it decently, but it's one of my favorite songs on Boxer, and it seemed like they put a lot more oomph into the above four. I would have loved to see them give it the production they gave to, say, "Fake Empire".
All in all, a good show. I skipped all of the other bands and just came to see The National, so I don't know how the opening bands were, and I was feeling kind of sick, which took away from the experience a little bit, but still an excellent time.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and the violinist is like ten times more awesome live than he is on the album. That guy fucking rocks.
Opened with "Apartment Story" and went from there into "Brainy", both excellent songs. Played some of their best stuff, and came back for one of the most obvious encores to play "Start A War" (not one of my favorites, but decent) and then end on "Mr. November", which is always an excellent point to end.
There were a couple of songs I would have liked to hear live ("City Middle", "Gospel", "Guest Room" would have all been awesome to hear), but still a good set overall.
What especially struck me with The National live versus listening to their albums is how fucking intense the music/instrumentation is. They borrow a lot of techniques from build & swell, starting simply and bringing forward this wall of sound that shakes the air and even drowns at the vocals at times. When they first started playing it took some time getting used to, because The National is such a vocally oriented band for me, but it really adds to just about everything.
A couple of other neat little bits in there. Probably the high points of the set were "Squalor Victoria", "Racing Like A Pro", "Fake Empire", and "Mr. November", plus the one new song they did that I liked a lot (the name is escaping me at the moment). I was a little disappointed with "Slow Show" - they did it decently, but it's one of my favorite songs on Boxer, and it seemed like they put a lot more oomph into the above four. I would have loved to see them give it the production they gave to, say, "Fake Empire".
All in all, a good show. I skipped all of the other bands and just came to see The National, so I don't know how the opening bands were, and I was feeling kind of sick, which took away from the experience a little bit, but still an excellent time.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and the violinist is like ten times more awesome live than he is on the album. That guy fucking rocks.
