The National @ Johnny Brenda's: The Boxer Meets Rocky's Town

If you were in the Philadelphia area this weekend, the hottest ticket in town was ... Roger Waters. Doh! Well, for the rest of us it was The National. After selling out five nights at NYC's Bowery Ballroom, the six-piece packed a sold out Johnny Brenda's for an amazing, intense set of tunes off their latest, and best, album, Boxer.

The setlist:

• Start A War
• Brainy
• Secret Meeting
• Baby, We'll Be Fine
• Slow Show
• Racing Like a Pro
• Lit Up
• Squator Victoria
• Mistaken for Strangers
• Wasp Nest
• The Geese of Beverly Road
• Daughters of the Soho Riots
• ADA
• Apartment Story
• Fake Empire
• Mr. November
• Encore: Abel
• About Today

On the way down south, I was soaking in Boxer, and I realized how much more confident the album is. They are willing to incorporate different ideas and feelings. Their M.O. is that their songs, mostly inspired by the work of Nick Cave, are about trouble lovers and their apologetic ways. It's kind of like music you listen to while driving to and driving away from a break-up. Boxer has more layers of instruments and vocals to give a more involving feeling.

The good trend this year is that bands that have been around for a while are making their best album now. Groups like Of Montreal, !!! ,Electric Soft Parade, and now, The National have produced their best work in 2007, and are now gaining the audience their richly deserve. It also helps that The National just came off a major tour with Arcade Fire. Unfortunately, I caught the last two songs of their set at the Tower Theater and didn't see them at Radio City. So really this is my second time seeing them. The last time was that infamous 2005 Bowery show where Clap Your Hands Say Yeah opened and about half the crowd left after their set. That was truly a shame.

Last night's show was a surprisingly loose affair, with the band getting into the moment with their music, but also willing to let their guard down and banter with the crowd. This is my first time at Johnny Brenda's and quickly became my favorite venue in the city. As Matt Berninger noted, "So this is a new place ... that's made to look old. It's like a mini-Radio City Music Hall, but everyone is here to see us. I like it." The lead singer was in top form, hitting those low register notes of songs like "Secret Meeting" and portraying the forcefulness on "Abel" and "Fake Empire." For "Apartment Story," Matt decided to sing the song amongst the crowd with his mic stand. I guess he took some pointers from Win Butler. As for the looseness, someone yelled out, "You guys kick U2's ass." Which made Matt reply, "Like in a fight. Okay, there are six of us and four of them, but they're Irish."

Johnny Brenda's is a damn fine venue. There's nothing like it in New York. It's in a section of Philly called Fishtown, a bit north of Center City. It's a neighborhood with a lot of working class character. It's a corner tavern, where the ground floor is a typical neighborhood water hole. When you walk upstairs portion, the place expands to a venue, so it looks smaller from the outside. With that in mind, it probably holds 250-300 tops. The bar serves only locally produced beer and wine. There's a backroom with a photo booth and a balcony that overlooks the stage. You practically hanging over the stage. You're so close that you can reach down and hand the band a drink. The stage is an odd shape, it's a rectangle where you can stand to the south and east of the stage. So the performers can face in front of them or to the side. As Matt pointed out, it does have a purposely aged look. There are like antiques and aged upholstery strewn along the walls. As for sound, it was great from where I was standing. The downside -- it was stuffy on a humid night.

So that was experience. This is pretty much as small a place that the band while play, I have a feeling next time around they'll headline much larger venues.

 

Comments

[Brian]

i probably liked about today the best. the strings by padma newsome were great the whole show. pretty excellent set considering they just played 5 straight nights in nyc.

[Rob]

Shhhhh!
Don't be braggin' too much about Johnny Brenda's! We don't want all you clean-shaven NYC hipsters coming down and ruining it for us!