By my count, this is my 6th time seeing The National. Hell, it’s my second time in Cardiff (RIP the I Am Easy To Find material, thank god for 2019). And still they remain one of my absolute favourite live acts. Beyond even the talent on stage, a large part of it is my own personal depth and breadth of their catalogue - there are very few songs they could play I wouldn’t recognise, and very few songs I wouldn’t be thrilled to hear. This is, with the amount of music I listen to, not true of most artists I see live (see Taylor Swift). So I know I’m going to have a good time.
This is, though, my first time getting to see them with Alasdair, and his first time seeing them full stop, so that’s a treat. We trek over to Cardiff on the National Express, thanks to rail engineering works, kill the afternoon, and line up nice and early to be right at the front of Cardiff Castle. It’s a hell of a view.
It’s wonderful after all this time to still get to experience some favourite songs for the first time - they open with Runaway, a fascinating off-kilter choice for an opener, but a mood-setter nevertheless. Conversation 16 is a different beast entirely live, my god. Otherwise, an excellent collection of your gold standards, some deeper cuts (The Geese Of Beverly Road, now appreciable for its rarity compared to hearing it in 2017, having not really listened to Alligator by then), and some in the middle. Smoke Detector is so much goddamn fun live.
Matt Berninger is on very good form tonight, playing with the sign language interpreters, lots of stage banter, having a great time of it. It’s a shame, then, that something happens with the sound mix around Day I Die, which frustratingly renders a lot of the magic loss. I think they messed with the bass and it through the whole thing off. Blergh. Ah well. It doesn’t dampen too much the experience, and we walk back to the Premier Inn on clouds.
A delight to have Unknown Mortal Orchestra as support act, who play a very Sam-friendly setlist. It could maybe have stood to be a bit more energetic, and the vocals could have been a bit higher in the mix, but still - From The Sun, Swim And Sleep, Necessary Evil, Multi-love, Can’t Keep Checking My Phone - banger after banger.