Monday, September 27, 2010

Slow Show


Because I didn't have a long enough of week of work travel, what did I do over the weekend?

...that's right, travel some more.

My plane touched down in Cleveland at 13:00 on Saturday and by 14:30 I was back in my car (after picking up Denton) to go get my 17 year old nephew and drive to Pittsburgh.

He wanted to see the National and Pittsburgh was about the closest place they were coming, and to be honest, I was curious to see them too. So we trekked to the Carnegie Library Music Hall to check them out.

The venue has slightly over 1000 seats and the crowd wasn't exactly what I was expecting. As my nephew aptly pointed out, 'they're not all hipsters here!'. And they weren't. Mind you, they were there, but the NPR crowd who found them during some of their reporting on the band earlier in the year were there too. Denton and I were not the oldest people in attendance. It was a white white white crowd to be sure. A few asian chicks and one african-american woman, but mostly white folk.

I guess five white guys (and three additional musicians) from Cinci transplanted to Brooklyn translates only so far.

That all being said, it was a good show. The playing was tight and Matt Beringer's singing was spot-on. The between song patter was muddied and I barely understood what they were trying to say. After the first half of the show, no more talking or even pausing between songs. The band did a great job of segueing from song to song.

For as mostly low key as they are on record, they had some moments of a good rock band, but not so loud that they hurt this old man's hearing. The crowd treated Beringer like a g-d, which was weird to watch from such band not in the public eye for that long. On the last song, "Terrible Love", Beringer finished it by walking out in the crowd and singing the last half out there. It was quite a sight to see. He never came back to the stage and exited somewhere out of sight from us.

They played all but a few songs from their new disk, High Violet and then a good sampling from Boxer and Alligator.

It was a good show and the nephew really liked it.

Me? While I liked the show, I was happy to get back to the hotel. I had been up since 04:30 and it was now 23:30 and like I said earlier, I am an old man. ....an old old man.


Song by: the National

4 comments:

AJohnP said...

Well, if you're old, then I'm on my deathbed...I've never even HEARD of The National. :-)
Just gettig caught up on your recent posts. Beautiful pictures from the OK memorial...thanks for sharing.

Jonny said...

What a perfect venue to see The National!

A Lewis said...

Those long, long days seem to get the better of me more often than they used to. But I sort of like that idea of pushing myself, making myself do something that I wouldn't do all by myself.....
And I'm sure that your nephew appreciated it!

Wonder Man said...

I feel like an old man too on some days