Have you ever tried brooding? I don’t mean sulking in the corner over some trivial nonsense that has temporarily caused your mood to plunge. I’m talking about going full Victor Von Doom, retreating to your shadowy lair, ruminating over the tragic nature of existence.
Matt Berninger knows what true brooding is. The National singer has a baritone voice that could cause the tectonic plates on the Earth’s surface to shift. This is a band that make music full of stoic poise, expressive prose and foreboding drama that is only possible when your brooding is on point. Yet even with this gloaming in their spirit, The National are one of the world’s marquee live draws, mutating sometime during George W. Bush’s second term from indie blog favourites to a group that can lift stadiums off their foundations.
Tonight the setting is Donnybrook Stadium for the first of two headline shows in a weekend that will function as a festival in all but name (Future Islands top the bill on day 3). Chief support comes from John Grant, who for an hour gives Grey Tickles Black Pressure, I Hate This Town, It Doesn’t Matter to Him and other numbers that confirm the star as a piano-driven pop songwriter of the Paul McCartney and Elton John lineage.
All-black suit
It’s The National’s name on the ticket, though. Our first glimpse of Berninger is backstage but viewable on the big screen as the frontman, kitted out in the sharpest all-black suit since John Wick, gives us a twirl. Bob Dylan’s Most of the Time emanates from the speakers – a legendary brooder if ever there was one.
Joined by Lisa Hannigan (who, having played an earlier set, ends up on stage with the band a couple of times), The National open with Nobody Else Will Be There. It’s slow, emotive and moving, nothing like a traditional outdoor gig classic but the crowd hang on every word. That’s the band’s indomitable power.
The song is from their latest album Sleep Well Beast, which at only about nine months old, they are ostensibly here to promote. On The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness, up second, Berninger gyrates and waves the mic stand around like he’s touched by a metal god. When a rainbow appears on the horizon, the singer promises not to make any leprechaun gags. “That’s the cloudiest rainbow I’ve ever seen,” he jokes. Even presented with a splash of colour, he sees the darkness. The lowkey Walk It Back is mostly sung in a whisper. Berninger, though verbose and jovial between numbers, has the presence of a preacher whose soul is condemned.
The best moments draw from what I guess we can call the band’s middle period. Afraid of Everyone and Bloodbuzz Ohio offer the first big singalongs. Later we get Fake Empire, forever a phenomenal festival record. Siblings Aaron and Bryce Dessner’s guitars throughout the set carry the tension of two buzzsaws. The horns add to the power. Bryan Devendorf is still one of indie rock’s great drummers.
Yet the show never quite ignites like the best National gigs I’ve seen. Maybe it’s the crowd, mostly calm and chatty in the two viewing positions I took up. Maybe it’s the quieter nature of the band’s latest compositions, such as Guilty Party, Born To Beg and Carin at the Liquor Store. Sometimes, though, it just feels as though the band are missing the magic. Slow Show is one of their best songs but I’ve heard more enthused performances of it than tonight. This is likely to be calmest outdoor show of the summer. Food for the brooding.
Ramshackle vocal
But as Robert McKee uttered in the movie Adaptation, “You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you’ve got a hit.” About Today, an oldie in The National’s catalogue, reaches a crescendo that really slaps. The screwed piano chords of Light Years ring out into the night. Mr November is still a ridiculous rollicker. Then we get a ramshackle vocal on Terrible Love as Berninger, by now deep in the crowd, gets help from audience members. The somewhat manic finish acts as a welcome counterpoint to the band’s earlier composure.
The National end with a tried and tested closer: an acoustic version of Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, with Berninger leading the singalong with no microphone. As singing intensifies, the stadium’s floodlights switch on, as though to throw focus on crowd’s rhapsodizing performance. Or maybe just to tell them it’s time to go home. Either way, it showcases the group’s great gift: wrapping their grimness in warmth, combining desolation with hope. That’s why this empire has been anything but fake.
