The National are surviving what passes for raging, breakout success in contemporary indie rock: after releasing the third in a trio of truly great albums--establishing them as the prime purveyors of a certain post-millenial ennui, anomie, or je ne sais quoi--they are playing venues that customarily host cash-in comeback tours. This week they sold out two nights at Boston’s House of Blues to a crowd that mixed High Hipster with college kid denominator.
So we all knew what we were getting for a National show. The songs are tight and worn smooth as a vintage smoking jacket, live as on record. For this tour--enjoying the budget that comes with success--the five-piece added two horns and multi-instrumentalist Padma Newsome, who spent most of his time sawing at a violin in steadily steeper fits of ecstasy. Yet the songs are scrupulously scored in their original incarnations, and the live arrangements differed only subtly--some longer intros, some extra horn parts--so we were free to collect impressions of a band at the height of its powers and in its moment.
1. It is difficult to adequately describe the disorientation of seeing the Dessner twins up close, a doppleganging reduplication embodied in their meshed guitar parts, which often make it difficult to tell which of the two is playing what. At one point one of them (who knows which) leaned towards the other and with half a gesture communicated that he still needed to re-tune, and the other one (whichever) took over in a split second.
2. Matt Berninger’s charisma is a thing to see. You’re familiar with the depleted, dilapidated baritone from the records, but there is an entirely new drama in person. My notes from the show say “Scrupulously unsexy,” but that’s not quite right. For one thing, I’m probably not the only one with a soft spot for tragic depressives in threadbare waistcoats. For another, when Berninger’s rumble erupts in the convulsive upper register bark, first unleashed to declare, “I told my friends not to worry,” on “Anyone’s Ghost,” in a voice that suggests precisely the opposite, the frisson is part fear – it is the sound of someone snapping after bending for too long.
3. And when he takes to the crowd for “Mr. November,” brandishing a mic stand like a poleaxe and howling “I won’t fuck us over” with similarly ambiguous certainty, it is not entirely clear whether this is reaching out or lashing out.
4. The National wouldn’t be shit without Bryan Devendorf’s drums. He looks not inappropriately like a pensive John Bonham, and is the spine that prevents the band’s relentless navel-gazing from collapsing in on itself. An odd, endearing side effect is a generous view of Berninger’s parsimonious butt as he leans his head into the kick between verses and throws himself back towards the mic. Between visits, Berninger sustains the symbiosis by punching his fists together with an audible smack. That careening, dense melee is not hard to caricature, and openers The Antlers borrowed liberally from Devendorf’s more bombastic moments but, for my money, didn’t approach the melodicism.
5. The men of The National are not as po-faced as their records suggest. Berninger isn’t exactly chatty between songs and the Dessner’s tend to limit themselves to polite thank you’s (predictably, it’s hard to tell which one spoke without scrupulous observation). But still: they evinced a comfortable self-awareness of their neglect of, well, fun. Berninger introduced “Venderlyle Crybaby Geeks,” saying “This is where we get introspective and melancholic.” A pause. A Dessner: “Aren’t we always introspective and melancholic?” Another pause, some scattered chuckles. “Respect the sadness,” intones Berninger, failing to suppress a smirk. Over the course of the evening, the band attempted repeatedly to dedicate songs to a newly engaged couple, only to realize (shock, horror) that the songs in question dealt with relationships on the rocks at best. “Let’s try this one,” Berninger said gamely before a dense and sonorous take on “Lemonworld.” “It’s about sisters and bathing suits and torture. Maybe that will work.” And maybe it did.
