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A friend in Denver sent his thoughts about The National’s performance at the Mission Ballroom in Denver this past weekend. He was still buzzing about their performance in “an amazing musical moment” and commented, “With no radio hits and over 20 years of history, most of their audience sung a large portion of their lyrically complex songs.” Well, okay then. He wasn’t throwing down a gauntlet, but Atlanta, how will you fare?
The National is touring in support of The First Two Pages of Frankenstein, released at the end of April. Singer/co-songwriter Matt Berninger has said the intro provided inspiration to move beyond a momentary writer’s block, and we know that it at least resulted in the title of their first album since 2019.
The band itself is the story of the sum of many parts. They work together to tell a story, and while each instrument may have a lead role, anything that might be called a solo was absent. Bryan Devendorf’s drumming comes through as the core of what they do, providing complex rhythms and subtle variations that enhance the emotional depth of their music. A formula becomes apparent as the night continues on, the band playing softly at the start with a featured instrument for the melody, giving room in the aural space to set the mood by Berninger’s baritone voice and crystalline lyrics. Then the drumming pattern shifts, and the music gradually builds to a height as Beringer moves up an octave, closing the song either at the high or returning to the minimalistic start to close out the song.
Formulas might suggest a bad thing. In this case, it certainly isn’t. For their lyrics, the songs would eventually wear if the music captured the emotion from start to finish. Instead they take the listener from one place to another emotionally. The band’s newest song, “Space Invaders,” which they introduced during that set, is a great example. In concert, their style places substance and emphasis on each song, rather than a “when’s the next hit” mentality. This is why starting with not three, but four of their new songs works. Each is an experience.
The band changes their setlist each stop, which is refreshing. Each of the band’s albums invites comparisons to their previous work, but taken aside, the new songs are striking. “Once Upon a Poolside” is an ambiguous song testing the past versus present and sung in all but a solo spotlight. “Eucalyptus” presents unsettling questions surrounding the splitting of things when a relationship ends. And so the absorption of each song begins. Some audience experiences might be judged by how few are sitting down. For The National, the math doesn’t apply.
For Atlanta, singing along was limited to a number of their older songs, such as “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Fake Empire.” And “Mr. November,” well, that one is made easy for raucous audience engagement.
The band changes their setlist each stop, which is refreshing. Each of the band’s albums invites comparisons to their previous work, but taken aside, the new songs are striking. “Once Upon a Poolside” is an ambiguous song testing the past versus present and sung in all but a solo spotlight. “Eucalyptus” presents unsettling questions surrounding the splitting of things when a relationship ends. And so the absorption of each song begins. Some audience experiences might be judged by how few are sitting down. For The National, the math doesn’t apply.
For Atlanta, singing along was limited to a number of their older songs, such as “Bloodbuzz Ohio,” “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Fake Empire.” And “Mr. November,” well, that one is made easy for raucous audience engagement.
Over the course of two hours and 24 songs, Matt Berninger doesn’t need to be a Mick Jagger to capture the audience’s focus. Whether leaning to the left or right or walking to the ends of the stage or even into the audience, his hands supplement his voice and the music to provide the shape of how he interprets each song. Freezing moments with a lens, he could at times be confused with a college professor or delivering a Ted Talk… and it doesn’t work against him.
Berninger introduced many of the songs. For “Abel,” he mentioned that recording the video had required 20 takes, a very taxing song. His voice has dropped a bit since those early years, and on this song and others where higher notes and maximum volume was required, it was obvious that the tour is weathering even that. At those moments, it invites questions about how the music might sound if he gave them a Robbie Robertson or Leonard Cohen all-but-spoken treatment.
Another comment was made about “Grease in Your Hair” and being accused of singing gibberish in one of the dual lines near the end. It’s still not clear what he was saying, but he admitted it had to do with thoughts of a person who is buried in Marietta National Cemetery, which he visited earlier in the day.
The band itself is the sum of many parts in telling a story. While each instrument may have a lead role, anything that might be called a solo was absent. Bryan Devendorf’s drumming was a revelation live as the centerpiece of their music, providing complex rhythms and subtle variations that enhance the emotional depth of their music. A formula becomes apparent as the night continued on, the band playing softly at the beginning of most songs with a featured instrument establishing the melody, giving room in the aural space for the lyrics to be clearly heard and for Berninger’s baritone voice to set the mood. Then the drumming pattern shifts, and the music gradually builds to a height as Beringer correspondingly moves up a scale or two, closing the song either at the high or dropping to the minimalistic tones from the beginning to close out the song.
Formulas might suggest a bad thing. In this case, it certainly isn’t. For their lyrics, the songs would eventually wear if the music captured the same emotion from start to finish. Instead they take the listener from one place to another emotionally. The band’s newest song, “Space Invaders,” which they introduced during that set, is a great example. Whether on record or in concert, their style places substance and emphasis on each song, rather than a “when’s the next hit” mentality. This is why starting with not just three, but four of their new songs worked. Each is an experience, and it’s one that their fans seek out.
It was a great night at Chastain for music listeners.
Setlist:
Encore:
