Live Review: The National

The screen on the Sidney Myer Music Bowl stage begins playing footage of The National making their way up from backstage and thousands of fans cry out with excitement, adding to a roar that rises the closer they get. Guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner, drummer Bryan Devendorf (sporting a fluoro-pink cap, delightfully out of place among the band's smart, dark-coloured attire), bassist Logan Cole (standing in for brand new dad Scott Devendorf), frontman Matt Berninger (glass of wine in hand; spectacles on) as well as a trumpet player and trombonist saunter on stage and launch into Don't Swallow The Cap, off The National's 2013 LP, Trouble Will Find Me. Solarised scenery and real-time stage footage play onscreen.
The band's slow-burning tendencies are somewhat present in a live setting too, with Berninger seeming distracted and unfocused, occasionally walking off stage, until more than a handful of songs have been performed. This is likely due to sound issues, though. Once he warms up, his 'agitated professor' style of pacing around ultimately enhances the anxiety-ridden lyrics he spouts into the microphone.
The audience warms a little faster, fully invested by the time we hear the buzzing guitar and brass intro of fifth song and crowd favourite, Bloodbuzz Ohio. The combination of hearing Aaron and Berninger singing in unison an octave apart and watching the Dessner twins ripping at their guitar strings, mirrors of each other, is enough to spur that electric feeling in your veins. Berninger keeps the sensation going as he allows himself to finally let loose during Sea Of Love – a third of the way into their 25-song set – crouching and bending down low, spitting out, “Tell me how to reach you,” with one forearm clasped tightly against the front of his torso as if trying to hold himself together. Berninger's performance – and indeed the other band members' – is an intriguing balance of maintaining composure and relinquishing control, which is in tune with the nature of their music. Take one of many highlights, Afraid Of Everyone, as an example: the guitars swing from reserved to unbridled; the climax feels like bursting through the barrier holding everything in; and the lyrics exude fear and paranoia but also a desire to protect the people you love. Emotions are further heightened with Slow Show. Bryce runs a violin bow across his guitar and when Aaron switches to piano for the bridge and Berninger sings, “You know I dreamed about you/For 29 years before I saw you,” there are more than a few glistening cheeks in the crowd.
Blissful brass and vertical guitar strumming to end Fake Empire lift the mood back up to prepare us for the encore. Berninger ventures out into the crowd in Mr November, striding through outreached hands and camera flashes and making lines of people duck to avoid being choked by his long mic lead. The breathtaking sight of Matt being held up by a huddle of punters front and centre while we're all screaming along with him, “It takes an ocean not to break,” in Terrible Love is surpassed only by the almost reverent acoustic singalong of closer Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks. There's a hilarious scene in Berninger's brother Tom's documentary Mistaken For Strangers where Tom jokingly asks Berninger to look in the mirror and say over-earnestly, “The National belongs to everyone now”. But as everyone files out of the venue, hearts full, it really feels like they do.