San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
AIDIN VAZIRI’S POP MUSIC PICK
It only took a year, but the National is now ready to make up the dates it was forced to postpone at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley last year due to the hazardous air quality caused by the North Bay fires. “The Greek is one of our favorite venues in the world and it was heartbreaking to have to postpone the shows, ” the band’s guitarist-keyboardist, Aaron Dessner, said in a statement.
The somber indie rock group, led by Matt Berninger, is now set to return to the venue on MondayTuesday, Sept. 24-25. It’s touring in support of 2017’s “Sleep Well Beast,” its seventh full-length album. “It’s just really fun to play the songs,” multi-instrumentalist Scott Devendorf told The Chronicle. “We started most of the shows playing the whole album straight through. Now we’ve started playing some of the older songs. It’s a combination. We’re confident with the new record, and we also want to play some older tunes we’ve shied away from in the past.
The National:
6:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, Sept. 24-25. $49.50. Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley, 2001 Gayley Road, Berkeley. http://apeconcerts.com