The National @ Alexandra Palace

The first time I saw The National 2008 in what was then the Carling Academy, Birmingham, holding just a few hundred people, Boxer had just been released and they were on the cusp of their big break. Since then, High Violet was voted one of the top albums of 2010, winning the Q award for Best Album. They were nominated for 'Best International Breakthrough Act' at the 2011 Brit Awards - ironic for a band who had released their first album ten years earlier. Now they sell out the Alexandra Palace for two nights (13 and 14 November 2013). 

When I first started this blog two years ago, I posted a rant about how disappointed I was with the way The National were heading. As it turns out, I'm one of the few old-school fans I know who actually really loves Trouble Will Find Me. My worries about the band going bland were unfounded, as songs like Don't Swallow The Cap (above), Sea of Love and Graceless have all the lyrical dexterity and raw, self-deprecating, confused emotion that makes me return again and again to the band. Nonetheless, in the lead-up to the gig I'd been listening obsessively to early albums The National and Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, as I so often do, thinking what a shame it was that they would never play those songs again, so I was OVERJOYED when they played my favourite song, Available with the outro from Cardinal Song - in Matt Berninger's words "a strange mix of anger and eroticism". Matt's hair may be receding and his eyesight failing, but it's great to see he still has the rage which bubbled through their early albums. 

(Sadly I can only find a really bad quality video).

Over the years, I've followed The National to the Royal Festival Hall, the Zénith in Paris (supporting Pavement) and the 02 Academy Bristol. This is the first time I haven't been in touching distance from them in a throng of die-hard fans, so I felt weirdly dislocated from them. They did a good job of filling the enormous stage with an impressive light show though, and I really appreciated the set-list packed full of hits from across their albums (including other old favourites like About Today and Mr November). The next time I see The National will be supporting Neil Young in Hyde Park in July - I can't wait to see what they're like in front of a crowd of over 60,000.

Does success stifle creativity? Pondering on The National

Today I spent most of the day discussing The National with a fellow fan (a much bigger fan than me actually). While we still both love the band, we can't help feeling that their latest songs are decidedly mediocre compared to their earlier work. When we have voiced these comments, we've been told that we're one of those people who only like a band when no one else has heard of them because it makes us feel special, which couldn't be further from the truth. We're both very happy that the band we love so much are now appreciated by so many people, we just object to the turn towards the mundane the band have taken. That their songwriting has gone from edgy to saccharine is an objective fact. Compare Karen from 2005 album Alligator (the album that first put the band on the radar)...

... with I Need My Girl, one of their latest works in progress.

Although both are ostensibly 'love' songs, Karen is so much more gritty. What changed? I can only assume that, now having found fame, The National are keen to cultivate it and lyrics like 'It's a common fetish for a doting man, a ballerina on a coffee table cock in hand' aren't exactly radio friendly. But more than that, what is so attractive about The National's earlier lyrics is the roughness born of a struggle with mundane reality. It's what made them relateable. Perhaps on of their most beautiful, moving songs is Baby We'll Be Fine, also from Alligator:

The subject matter is very similar to I Need My Girl, both are about trying to keep a relationship going despite obstacles, only Baby's protagonist is a white-collar worker agonising about winning his bosses approval, while INMG is a response to years of continual touring. Similar emotions are there, but it's much less relateable.

Moreover, the fuel of their earliest work was a desperate desire to escape from the dreariness of their offices, an indignation against the cult of the 1%. Nowhere is this more evident than in The Theory of the Crows from their self-titled 2001 début (below). Ironically, having now achieved this goal, they have lost the passion of those early days. It made us fans think, do artists need to be struggling to create truly great work?