The National
Thursday, June 07, 2007
I went and saw The National last nite and it was an amazing show. Unfortunately it was all ages something I didn't realize until 7:45pm. I didn't have a ticket and was just going to pay at the door but got spooked when I saw that kiddies would be there. So I headed downtown and got in about 9:30pm. The place was packed with a bunch of backpack wearing, bad haircut emo kids with X's on their hands. To make matters worse the opening band was awful and I still had to make it thru another one. I found a seat at the bar and watched the Tigers game for a while and eavesdropped on a pair of guys picking up some suburban girls which was quite funny. The conversation drifted from European summer travel to books they read. The one girl was a school teacher and said she loves to read Kurt Vonnegut and Maya Angelou. The guy said yeah he loves Kurt as well. Now they may have been serious but it was pretty funny to see 2 people swapping literary authors while sucking down PBRs. I will admit it, I am not a pretentious book reader, I like my novels full of crime, detectives, CIA, FBI, espionage and doomsday scenarios. I have a few authors that I read who are more on the literary side but for the most part those books bore me. I figure if I read pretentious books as well as drink pretentious wine and listen to pretentious music, I would be an insufferable bore. Being that I read bargin table books, drink good wine (not pretentious there is a difference) and listen to good indie rock, brit rock, electronic, alt country etc I would never end up as one of "Those People".
Getting back to the show, The National came on about 11pm and the place was about 3/4ths full and the grownups had arrived. They played a good number of songs from Alligator which surprised me since Boxer just came out. By the end of the night they had play 4 songs from the new cd and a mix of others from the previous cds. The highlight was when they played "Murder Me Rachel" the song that turned me onto the band. A few years ago I heard the song on Woxy and was blown away. I picked up Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers but didn't really get into the band until Alligator came out. There were a couple songs they didn't play which I was hoping for but for the most part it was a great setlist. "Fake Empire" and "Mistaken For Strangers" were excellent live, better than I expected. Check your local concert listings and if The National are playing your city head down to the show, you won't be disappointed.
Posted by mardenhill 6/07/2007 08:43:00 AM
Labels: Music
1 Comment:
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1:06 PM
I got this album the other day and really just listened to it this morning, but I really, really like it. Good stuff.
