The National
All Together Now, Saturday
★★★★☆
With Róisín Murphy having withdrawn from All Together Now because of illness, there is pressure on the melodramatic indie band The National to deliver a memorable headline performance on the second day of the Co Waterford festival. They do not disappoint, their thoughtful misery-pop providing a gripping soundtrack as a balmy day turns to night at the Curraghmore estate.
On a weekend distinguished by the diversity of the line-up – Irish folk music bumps up against techno, reggae against electronica – The National bring a clarifying indie angst. Under the spotlight, singer Matt Berninger lives up to the group’s billing as alternative rock’s resident sad dads: his salt-and-pepper stubble and professor spectacles give him the air of an off-duty academic; while songs such as their opener tonight, Sea of Love, conjure a midlife-crisis energy that sparkles like fireworks at a funeral.
On the go for more than two decades, The National have recently attained a sort of megafame by proxy after their guitarist Aaron Dessner produced Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore, the LPs that brought her the chin-stroking credit that she hadn’t needed but that completed her journey from teen star to once-in-a-generation talent.
You can see what drew Swift to Dessner and The National. Perpetually crestfallen yet illuminated by bursts of melody, Tropic Morning News and Bloodbuzz Ohio radiate a sort of reluctant magnificence. There aren’t many big hooks you can join in on. But the raw lyrics and the brooding music nonetheless get under your skin and ricochet around your head (as does the alarming silver jacket Berninger dons late in the evening).
Headlining a festival is tricky, because you have to put on a performance that is more than just a showcase for diehard fans (one of whom presents to Berninger a mask displaying a digital likeness of the vocalist’s face). The National deliver, and Berninger’s encore plunge into the crowd during Terrible Love confirms the set as a sad-dad singalong to cherish.
