The National at Energia Park, Dublin: Minimalist, introspective pop

By Ed Power

[rating]4[/rating]

Great rock bands often succeed because of their contradictions rather than despite them. That’s certainly true of The National whose minimalist, introspective pop took flight on a brightly-lit evening in Dublin.

Seldom has an arena act packed so emotive a punch even as they broke all the rules of being a stadium act.

Where U2 and Coldplay have honed the art of communicating with a mass audience by doing the equivalent of painting in primary colours, The National utilise a palette of exclusively darker shades, somehow finding glimmerings of grace amid the shadows.

The National are touring Sleep Well Beast, their extraordinary 2017 album in which singer Matt Berninger delved into the minutiae of life as a married, middle-aged father. It’s a corner of the human experience rock stars seldom explore and which Berninger squared up to unflinchingly, unafraid of portraying himself in an unflattering light.

But Berninger is a frontman, as well as a chronicler of mid-life angst and wonderment and his strategy for connecting with fans, has been to cultivate a comedically cantankerous persona.

“I’m talking over the intros to songs now – it’s my new thing,” he said, interrupting guitarist Aaron Dessner (who, with twin Bryce, writes the music).

The effect was a little goofy and presumably intended as a counterpoint to generally cathartic and often brooding songs.

But the unlikely chemistry worked as the five-piece kicked off with Nobody Else Will Be There, in which a marital disagreement is spun into a metaphysical commentary on the beauty and meaningless of life.

The National are a group that demand deliberation and devotion and so haven’t had many hit singles.

The closest to a straight-up smash, Bloodbuzz Ohio, unfurled luxuriantly in Donnybrook, Berninger’s rumbling croon suspended between the cascading guitars.

In a similar vein, Day I Die and I Need My Girl (with guest vocals from Lisa Hannigan) ruminated on mortality and made you glad you were alive – one of the harder tricks to pull off in pop.

What the concert lacked was the abandonment generally perceived as a vital component of mass-market rock.

Away from The National Bryce Dessner (curator of Cork’s Sounds from A Safe Harbour festival) is a noted figure in the world of contemporary music and Aaron a respected producer and their studiousness kept in check whatever Bono tendencies may have been bubbling up from the depths of Berlinger’s id.

But it’s the restraint that makes The National special and their run out at a rugby ground in south Dublin proved that saying less can be the most powerful message of all.