With 20 years and eight albums under their belt, The National now tick most of the boxes expected of a ‘Veteran Rock Band’. Their songs concern big important themes like growing old, American sprawl and true love; the compositions are full of scale and soaring crescendos that swell with occasional piano and string accents; and their influence is such that a new generation of artists including Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers have sought them out as both collaborators and producers.
Indeed, they might have started out trying to sound like Pavement, but stitched together with Matt Berninger’s signature baritone, The National’s songs have always sounded cosier with Leonard Cohen or U2 comparisons; older than their time, wearier and worldlier than their peers, built around richly detailed character studies and dramatic sensibility. And so it may seem curious that the band were chosen as headline acts for the opening night act of The Warehouse Project, where the audience often skews significantly younger and more electronically-inclined than the dulcet tones of this very grown up indie rock.
It's not the first time The Warehouse Project has programmed beyond the usual remit of DJs and B2Bs, but it is certainly the furthest it has deviated from this core offer. Megan Thee Stallion kicked thing off last year, whilst LCD Soundsystem played a pair of opening night shows back in 2017, though both are still rooted in the urban/electronic sounds that the wider programme has come to celebrate.
READ MORE: Review: Bonobo + Caribou at Warehouse Project
The National are a different prospect entirely, however, and one suspects that this is a deliberate strategy to open up The Warehouse Project to those beyond the usual crowd, and to position it as a more accessible city institution. Though that’s not to say The National fall short of previous opening acts, or even seem mildly out of place in the industrial tunnels of Mayfield Depot – quite the opposite in fact.
Having been referred to as a dinner party band, men’s magazine music and ‘new classic rock’ over the years, The National’s reputation is built upon a sense of reliability and professionalism, and despite the marked evolution the band’s sound has undergone across recent albums, their bread-and-butter remains an extremely capable and seasoned live show – one that affords the consummate songwriting and fine-tuned instrumentation a degree of spontaneity and communal resonance that is difficult to capture on record. As such, The National as a live band occupy a strange space; there isn’t a note out of place all night, and yet they sound as if they are constantly stood at the edge of their own songs, pushing them just that little bit further than usual and testing the seams.
Opener Don’t Swallow the Cap is lent cinematic weight by the crowd’s singalong, whilst the colossal dive into Mistaken for Strangers’ chorus still sounds as potent and commanding as it did back in 2007. Followed up by fan favourite Bloodbuzz Ohio , this trio of opening songs was the quintessential ‘something for everyone’ suite, serving up a fragment of the band’s three most lauded albums whilst simultaneously claiming an unlikely stretch of The Warehouse Project’s digital shores for the indie rock contingent.
More recent cuts including The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness and Day I Die showcase the jittery, anxious edge of 2017’s Sleep Well Beast – perhaps the record that comes closest to walking the same line of proficiency and rugged abrasion as the band’s live show – whilst tracks from 2019’s I Am Easy to Find – namely Rylan and Light Years – create some space with their looser, breathier arrangements, slowing the pace between singalongs. However, where these quieter moments have always been a crucial factor in The National’s music, the acoustic strum of Wasp Nest from the 2004 EP Cherry Tree gets lost to crowd noise and smothered by the Depot’s cold industriousness.
But this is only short-lived, as the shimmer of Pink Rabbits prompts another singalong and a cluster of raised lighters. Indeed, it is when the crowd is returning Berninger’s own lyrics that the true sharpness of these songs is revealed; the iconic refrain of Bloodbuzz Ohio’s chorus, “I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe”, takes on new immediacy during a cost of living crisis, whilst the cathedral-size calls of “You must be somewhere in London, You must be loving your life in the rain ” on England recall the hopeful nostalgia of pre-Olympics Britannia.
With singalongs being the recurring theme of the night, it is fitting that an A Capella version of Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks ends the show, with the band turning their mics around to let fans have the final word. Having powered through Mr November – formerly the band’s perennial closer, and the only song off Alligator to make an appearance tonight – and Fake Empire – still perhaps the finest encapsulation of the band’s statues as indie rock royalty – the stage was set for one of their larger, more iconic tracks, but the ascendant closer for 2010’s High Violet hits a tender note and sends the crowd on their way with the chorus rising into the night.
It is rare for a rock band to so seamlessly integrate themselves into a wider programme so far removed from their own sound, but where The Warehouse Project has long orbited the thrills, pills and drum-break headaches of electronic music, The National’s appearance could be looked back on as the night this Mancunian institution grew up… Guitars, drums and vocals? At my inner-city rave? It’s more likely than you think.
Read more of today's top stories here.
READ NEXT:
-
Manchester Pride 2022 dates, tickets, parade and everything you need to know
-
'Godsend' gran in tiny Stockport takeaway is feeding struggling families for free this summer
-
The stunning hidden farm with a waterfall that welcomes festival for bank holiday weekender
-
The best new restaurants that you have to try in Manchester right now
