Lollapalooza ’10: The National

IMG 6379 Lollapalooza ’10: The National – 8/8/10

Watching the progression of The National throughout the years has been a joy, transforming from hometown heroes across the Ohio River in Cincinnati to.. erm, a national rock force. Their latest LP, High Violet, is such an enjoyable gem, I can’t last longer than a week without playing it. I’m not sure if the swelling crowd that gathered for The National’s Sunday evening show experience the same weekly desire to spin High Violet, but if so they’d be the first to admit it’s a good problem to have.

[MP3] The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Throughout the course of Lollapalooza there was a certain method of alcohol intake appearing to increase in frequency as the weekend progressed. Of course, there were typical beer booths gladly serving Budweiser to anyone who dare binge drink during the heat wave (there were lots of daring people). Yet, there was one booth in “Chow Town” that offered full bottles of wine to purchase for essentially the cost of two over-priced beers. Cue The National taking the stage and also cue lead singer Matt Berninger trotting onstage with a just opened bottle of wine, pulling the cork out with his teeth and pouring it into a red solo cup. Everyone cheered as about a dozen bottles were raised into the air before The National opened with “Runaway”.

Aside from putting on a fantastic performance (I’ve never seen a bad National show), they managed to cram in a ton of songs from all over their discography including Alligator, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, Boxer, and of course High Violet. There was a suite featuring some of my favorite songs in a row, “Mistaken for Strangers” > “Anyone’s Ghost” > “Bloodbuzz Ohio”, that was superb but got a nice surprise when guitarst Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire joined them to jam out the latter two tracks. Pictures of the rare collab below, full setlist here.