The National – Blissful Intimacy in the Vineyard
Summer isn’t over, but last night’s performance by The National at the Villa Maria Estate might be the best single performance of the season.
I was somewhat surprised to discover that Grammy-winning indie darlings The National would be performing in a vineyard. I mean, sure Matt Berninger has a well-documented love of wine. But ‘Winery Tours’ seem to be relegated to golden oldies reeling out the hits (RIP Joe Cocker) or offensively bland background music (Six60, Dixie Chicks). On the surface, it was a complete misfit. However, it ended up being anything but.
Spreading our picnic blanket a mere 10 metres from the stage, we settled down to watch Tiny Ruins warm up the crowd in the fading light. Singer-songwriter Hollie Fullbrook’s ethereal trill intertwined between endlessly sweet melodies with aplomb. The dappled sun proved problematic as she tuned her guitar in-between songs. It was not an energetic set, nor would you expect it to be. Fittingly, it meandered along, humming with its own energy. Notably, She’ll Be Coming Round a swooning number from Brightly Painted One was given a delicate rework that captured the now-four piece’s predisposition towards giving generous performances hallmarked by poise and personality beautifully.
As a silvery moon rose overhead, we packed up our spread and I kicked off my shoes to feel the grass underfoot. The space that had previously felt so cavernous was suddenly full of people from all walks of life. Mothers rocked their babies in prams, elegantly dishevelled twenty-somethings supped on craft beer, retirees chatted from the comfort of their deckchairs. Regardless of age or autobiography, the air was filled with anticipation and a mutual love that is rarely seen on such a scale.
The stage lit up and smoke billowed as The National finally took to the stage a little after 8pm to rapturous applause. As the music swelled around him, lead vocalist Matt Berninger grasped the microphone and intoned You said we’re not so tied together What did you mean? to the collective swoon of the audience. His gravelly baritone-not dissimilar to Leonard Cohen-was just as enigmatic just as arresting live.
Part of my fear around The National performing in a winery is whether they could capture the intimacy and intricate dualities that have characterised each of their seven albums. They are a band that focuses on the rise and fall, the charge and defeat. They are a band who engages with painful emotions unflinchingly rather than gazing at their shoes and mumbling into a microphone and it’s an easy thing to be lost.
I needn’t have worried.
The contrasting rhythms of the guitar and rhythm section clawed at each other’s throats during songs such as Born to Beg While the Dessner brothers hung sheets of sound that washed over the crowd as drummer Bryan Devendorf’s inventive fills were a perpetual focal point, flinging and twisting against the static.
Matt Berninger managed to bring his lyrics to life, oscillating between yelping and a husky whisper as the song called for it. There was a physical sense of being enveloped by the sound that is rarely captured in an outdoors concert. Their stereotypically dark sound took on a jittery more frantic feel live thanks to a discography-sprawling set, which saw Buzzblood Ohio, Fake Empire, Squalor Victoria and Terrible Love sit alongside deeper cuts such as Wasps Nest and Turtleneck.
However, it wasn’t all gloom, and it was beautiful to see couples intertwined and swaying under the stars to the likes of I Need My Girl. As they closed with Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks the vineyard erupted into a song that lingered in the night air long after the band had left the stage.
A truly special evening by one of the greats.
Kate Powell
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March 6, 2018 @ 12:15 pm
A neat summation, Kate. It was a great night.
Did you think Matt was perhaps vocally not on absolute top form? I know venues are different and sound systems too, but when they were at the Powerstation he sounded so good, here less so to my old ears.
March 7, 2018 @ 4:04 pm
Hi Keith, thanks for your kind words 🙂 It was the first time I’ve seen The National perform, so I can’t compare it to the Powerstation gig. But if I look back on that night based purely on vocal pedagogy (and the couple of live recordings I’ve listened to of them) yes, I would agree that Matt was a little off. He seemed to run out of breath quite easily and it put a strain in the mid range of his voice, making him sound kind of…faded? There were moments where he was reaching too high into his upper registers too which made the bigger more emotionally intense moments loose their oompf. It wasn’t terribly distracting to my mind at least, and as you rightly say, sound systems and locations could play a part. It could also of course, be simply because his voice has changed over the last seven or so years.