How the National went from niche pub band to down-under winery rockers
The National come to the party with a new album and a 2018 winery concert.
With the release of the National’s seventh album, and ahead of their 2018 vineyard gig, it’s worth tracing how their decade of live New Zealand shows has gone from being suited to a beer accompaniment to needing something more refined.
In January 2008, a bottle of Coopers green at the Kings Arms was the right level of buzz for an American indie band that was then still niche enough to play an Auckland pub. But after the waves made by the band’s third and fourth albums – Alligator and Boxer – people were seen hanging out in the TAB bar next door, hoping to snap up the final 20 door sales. Later that year, the band played at a rally for presidential candidate Barack Obama.
The second of three nights in January 2011 at the nearby Powerstation saw a mesmerising version of Bloodbuzz Ohio from the album High Violet that was more suited to a gin-and-tonic accompaniment. But by 2014, the band needed Vector Arena for their Trouble Will Find Me tour.
In that more cavernous venue, Matt Berninger’s vocals were just as intimate – including the goosebump-inducing
This Is the Last Time and a version of
Lean dedicated to actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who had died the day before. But just as those small bottles of sav and decanted beers don’t taste quite the same as their bigger counterparts, there remained a nagging feeling that the band had outgrown their perfect venues.
Their most recent visit – for Auckland City Limits at Western Springs in 2016 – showed, though, that they had learnt to handle huge festival crowds. In their headline slot, the sibling pairings of Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Scott and Bryan Devendorf held the stage in front of a giant video screen as Berninger took his crazed intensity into the crowd.
That their planned February 2018 concert will be in the cultured environs of Villa Maria Estate in Mangere, Auckland, should come as no surprise. After all, the Dessner brothers recently curated a festival alongside Danish culinary entrepreneur Claus Meyer, one of the faces behind Noma, the erstwhile “best restaurant in the world”, and superstar microbrewer Mikkel Borg Bjergsø. It is no surprise, either, that their new album, Sleep Well Beast, shows they have matured from the grain to the grape – or at least a finely crafted ale.
Familiar melancholic tones mixed with Berninger’s personal-sounding vocals and esoteric asides about politics, band membership and family break-ups result in some stunning moments ( The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness and Carin at the Liquor Store). But the impact comes from the album’s more challenging notes. Walk It
Back flows around a chugging beat and chiming guitar while gratingly descending into electro chaos, Turtleneck is freak-out rock and roll and Guilty Party relies on a tinny drum-pad shuffle.
The title track wraps up the album with a dive into the National’s style, as Bryan Devendorf’s drums mix with electronic beats, Berninger’s calming voice is countered by the Dessner brothers’ discordant guitars and synths, and the story unravels of “how to get us back to the place where we were when it first went out”.
There will be a few at Villa Maria who will sip their wine and wonder the same.
SLEEP WELL BEAST, the National (Rhythmethod)