National

Even just a couple of years ago, it would have been hard to imagine a sold-out Alcatraz for National. But for several years now, the reviews of their records and live performances have almost always been enthusiastic, and word of mouth clearly still has some use in growing fans' attention toward bands that deserve it.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, shaped by personal taste, on "Alligator", "Boxer" and "High Violet", the New York band's last three efforts, but there's no doubt that these are three well-crafted records, with ideas that are at the very least interesting from a compositional standpoint, and marked by a vocal presence as distinctive as Matt Berninger's. In the same way, it was natural for anyone to feel deeply drawn in by the 2007 show, also in Milan, or by the sets they've delivered at numerous European festivals in recent years - festivals that, as we know, are always packed with Italians, since a proper festival here at home remains, and will always remain, an impossible dream. For this particular evening, they'd even put together a simple bit of choreography to greet the band's entrance onto the stage: something usually foreign to the so-called indie scene, even one as broadened as this, but which the musicians clearly appreciated.

Before the main show, the atmosphere is warmed up by Phosphorescent and his band. Matthew Houck displays both his love of classic country and his ability to give it an utterly modern vitality. His repertoire is deeply tied to the American tradition, but there's something in his singing style and in the way the arrangements are laid out that makes his take on it feel believable and current. Not because he's doing anything nobody has ever done before, but because he comes across as an artist who isn't necessarily trying to seem timeless, but who instead knows how to root his influences in the era he lives in. The more electric moments are worth attention, as are the ones built on acoustic guitar arpeggios, and the ones where piano lines take the lead. There's no particular technical flash on display, but the voice is clean and expressive and the band is tight and cohesive: accordingly, the crowd doesn't skimp on applause.

National, by contrast, deliver a top-notch performance from a strictly technical standpoint and show they have the right regard for every formal element a live show needs. Simply walking on stage and playing the songs exactly as they sound on record isn't enough to win over an audience, especially one numbering in the thousands, and the quintet, backed by two additional horn players, clearly grasp this concept. There's a real knack for using arrangement choices that differ somewhat from the records (largely thanks to the aforementioned horns) without distorting the songs, but simply making them better suited to a live setting; there's a Berninger who occasionally launches into an abrasive vocal delivery never heard on record; there's a clear desire to come across, as much as possible, as ordinary people, without placing themselves on some imaginary pedestal reserved for particularly gifted bands. This last aim is achieved partly by accident, when the frontman forgets a line, and partly on purpose, first through the band members' between-song banter on stage, which seems to tell the crowd "we like sharing how we feel because we're just like you," and then in the finale, with Berninger balancing along the barrier before walking down into the crowd, crossing the whole club and singing the last notes literally out on the street after stepping through the exit.

Amid all these surrounding details, as mentioned, there's a flawless performance from the band. Every facet of the wide range of vocal, compositional and sonic approaches that make up National's repertoire is rendered with precision and impeccable care. The sound can be dense or delicate, direct or expansive, purely rock-driven or enriched by piano or synths; the vocal tone shifts from baritone depth, to softness, to brazen swagger, to that biting abrasiveness mentioned earlier; the rhythm section's intensity keeps shifting, moving at times steadily, at times playing with well-judged tempo changes. Everything is executed to perfection, nothing is ever out of place, and on this front there isn't even a hint of a misstep throughout the entire show, roughly an hour and forty minutes long, with a setlist dominated by the last two albums but not lacking in intriguing dips into the past.

Tonight, National proved to the Italian audience too that they can comfortably handle bigger stages, not just intimate small-club shows, and most of the crowd applauds with genuine conviction. Sure, there's a minority who admired the band's skill but didn't feel as emotionally moved as they'd hoped: even for them, though, this was far from a bad show.

Photo by Anna Cerabino

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