Live Review: The National, Owen Pallett

Owen Pallett

Live Review: The National, Owen Pallett, October 3, 2010, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville
By: Denton Poteet

I had the option of seeing The National in my current hometown of Atlanta, but I opted instead to see them in Nashville. I don’t regret the decision. I’m sure they were great at The Fox Theatre here in Atlanta, but there’s at least one big thing Nashville got that Atlanta didn’t. I’ll get to that later.

I hadn’t actually listened to opener Owen Pallett in a couple of years, which is odd because I’ve always enjoyed his music. My years of neglect meant I didn’t recognize most of what he played, but that wasn’t much of a problem. He was still the same dynamic live musician I remembered. His show is still heavy on the looping, but he now plays with assistance from a multi-instrumentalist that switches between plays guitar, bass, and percussion.

Essentially the second band member is there to add detail to Pallett’s tightrope act, and that detail definitely helps fill a larger room like the Ryman. He seemed comfortable on stage and in front of the large audience, and the response he got in return is the sort of thing a quiet opening act must dream about. At one point he got a mid-song round of applause when he managed to pick up a dropped bow with his foot while continuing to both play and sing. I’ll be catching up with his most recent releases promptly.

The National

The National has progressed to a large theater-sized band organically, mostly on the strength of their last three critically acclaimed albums. Their success has allowed them to tour with enough musicians to recreate the album arrangements and play in venues where all the individual elements can be heard clearly. They’re one of the few active bands that I can honestly say I would rather see in a larger theater than a rock club.

They’re not just coasting, either. Their performance was more than just a rock show transposed onto a bigger stage with better acoustics. In addition to the extra musicians, they brought along a light show that subtly complemented the music. The stage was dark and moody when it needed to be, and every time Matt Berninger delivered one of his trademark screams all the house lights came up.

The National, and Berninger in particular, have a looser, friendlier stage presence than one might expect from a band who’s most common criticism is that they make dour music for navel-gazing urbanites. They joked about their image all night, with the Dessner twins mocking Berninger’s somber lyrics (one intro: “This is another one about urban alienation”), while the singer/lyricist kept responding that it was just a matter of perception. “Sorrow,” which one of the Dessner’s singled out as the song responsible for the reviews that labeled them as a miserabilist band getting more miserable, is apparently only depressing if you’re not down with sorrow. According to Berninger, at least.

Most of their stage antics should be familiar to anyone who’s seen the band live before. They don’t switch around instruments they way they used to (probably due to the extra help on stage), but Berninger still has those screams. The lights stayed up during “Mr. November,” when the singer wandered out into the crowd and performed most of the song while climbing over the church pews that constitute seating at the Ryman. He later gave a bottle of wine and some plastic glasses to the front row. None of this was new for the band, but it never came across as stale or calculated. It was more ritual than obligation.

They did bring along one new trick, though. For the final song of the encore, the lights came up once again and the entire band came to the front of the stage to perform “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” entirely unplugged and acoustic. It’s a Ryman tradition that makes use of the amazing acoustics of the room, which was built before amplification.

They nailed it. The resulting sing-along was spine-tinglingly good. I can’t think of a better way to end a concert.

Editor’s Note: Denton Poeteet is the also the author of Little Advances. You can follow him on Twitter @littleadvances.