The National at Eventim Apollo, London, review: Gentle introspection coupled with raucous dynamism
Matt Berginer is at the eye of the storm - pacing the stage, berating the soundman and launching cups of alcohol
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Your support makes all the difference.On record, The National’s immaculately refined elegies to male inadequacy have stealthily edged the Ohio quintet towards rock music’s summit. New album Sleep Well Beast, their seventh, this month landed them their first UK number one.
Live, they are a different proposition altogether. With the waistcoated and bespectacled frontman Matt Berninger a continuous bundle of kinetic energy, The National hover over the precipice of chaos. Flanked by the Dessner twins (guitars) and Devendorf brothers (drums and bass) the 46-year-old Berninger is at the eye of the storm, living out his perfectly outlined neurosis.
Drink in hand, he fills the gaps between vocals by twitchily pacing the stage, berating the soundman and launching cups of alcohol. For the chorus of Sleep Well Beast’s best track, the lightning bolt riff of “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”, Berninger clings to his microphone like a shield, edging into the crowd and discarding his velvet croon for a guttural scream.
As the groggy, self-lacerating cry of 2010’s “Afraid of Everyone” climaxes to a cauldron of noise, Berninger is on the floor; when “Abel”, from 2005’s breakthrough album Alligator, races to its frantic conclusion, he collapses on the drum riser, summoning his voice from the pit of his stomach.
That minutes earlier Berninger was stood motionless as he delivered the half-spoken newbie “Walk It Back” shows The National’s adaptability: gentle introspection coupled with raucous dynamism. At the first of a four night residency in Hammersmith, the majority of the former comes from Sleep Well Beast, of which there is a generous helping.
Full of trademark craftsmanship, it boasts added subtle electronic glitches – opener “Nobody Else Will Be There” is a beautiful yearn of post-millennial Radiohead remorse – and Berninger’s depth-plumbing confessions of domestic discontent (he wrote the self-questioning lyrics in tandem with wife Carin). Only “Turtleneck”, a venomous blast of blues rock and the most unlike National song yet, veers significantly from standard terrain.
But it remains startling to see the euphoria with which these inward looking songs are received. Hush descends as the exquisite “I Need My Girl” begins; gold plated hit “Bloodbuzz Ohio” brings the singalong of the night. After aborting “Empire Line” in the encore, “Mr November” is the suitably coalescing finale. Berninger, naturally, spent the song being mobbed as he wandered through the crowd.
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