Happily for me, the way I feel about the National at the moment, as I get my first chance to see them live, is pretty much the way I felt about Wilco when I saw them for the second time a couple of years back - that is, if they're not the best rock band going around today, then I don't know who is. And the show didn't disappoint - a solid 8 out of 10 rather than anything transcendent, but still really good (and I wonder if, like that Wilco show, there might be a later reappraisal upwards, because obviously the songs were all great and I can't really fault the actual concert).
Live, it's even clearer than on record that the drummer is the real genius in the band, but the whole outfit was solid, frontman Matt Berninger's baritone selling the songs well enough and bringing out throat-shredding screams for songs like "Abel", "Mr November" and "Squalor Victoria" that demanded it, guitars squalling through their parts, and trumpet and trombone featuring throughout. They mix it up dynamically, too, emphasising different aspects of various songs that could otherwise sound a bit same-y, with the ones that really should feel like complete blasts of momentum doing just that. On their last three albums in particular, there's barely a weak song, and the set drew almost entirely from those three, and so never flagged. I really did enjoy it a lot.
(w/ Nenad + Emma & friend Matt; and David + Justine seated elsewhere)
