THE NATIONAL // EDINBURGH CASTLE, EDINBURGH
A hit show from a band who rarely misses.
★★★★☆ (4/5)
No matter how many times you’ve seen The National live before, you never quite know what their next performance will deliver: Chaos; Ecstasy; Frivolity; Indignation; the Apocalypse. Just about anything is possible.
The darkly solemn lyrics of frontman Matt Berninger coupled with the delicately euphoric indie rock tones of his six bandmates are a heady mix on record but when given the large-scale flesh-and-blood treatment of an arena - or temporary stadium, in front of a castle, atop an extinct volcano - the experience is thoroughly intoxicating.
Their headline performance at Edinburgh Castle capped off a string of hugely successful summer festival dates and open-air shows across Europe and the UK including Primavera Sound, Montreux Jazz Festival and Glastonbury, and as testament to their still ever-growing popularity, fans travelled from all over to be in attendance, with some transient international visitors even buying tickets on the night.
Bess Atwell opened the night; her buttery, mellifluous vocal resonating over the Old Town in the early evening sun. The ease of her performance belied any end-of-tour emotions she may have been feeling, as well as the illness which she later disclosed via social media. Instead she played with an easy charm, drawing mostly on songs from her latest album “Light Sleeper” which was produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner. The opening 1-2 of “Everybody Who’s Not In Love With You Is Wrong” and “Release Myself” was even more devastating than on record and the building beauty of “Something Now” soared as the clouds broke to allow a little golden light onto the highest grandstand seating.
When The National arrived on stage Berninger was in a savagely playful mood, mingling and tormenting fans and occasionally spouting political quips. At times his voice came with more force than melody but as the set wore on he seemed to settle into the songs with a commanding -and less threatening- presence.
Throughout “Don't Swallow The Cap” he focused his effort on collecting and arranging cardboard signs from the audience; an unusual recent phenomenon for anyone other than Springsteen but it seems this expression of fandom is making a welcome comeback.
The run of “I Need My Girl”, “Slow Show” and “Sorrow” drew a particularly adoring reaction from the crowd but the intensity was regularly offset by Berninger’s tangential introductions and he even maliciously disembowelled a soft toy with his teeth during “Alien”.
The set concluded with “Fake Empire” before the band returned for a five-song power-encore that featured a duet with Bess Atwell, a dedication to Scott Hutchison and Tiny Changes and Berninger testing the limit of his microphone lead as he roamed the audience during “Terrible Love”. The almost-traditional closer of an unplugged “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” cascaded from all sides of the castle as Berninger gathered his cardboard mementos and exited the stage, leaving just acoustic guitars and a few hundred voices echoing their refrain.