Recap The National at First Avenue

“You picked the right night,” Antlers keyboardist Darby Cicci said. It was Friday night, and he was speaking to a jubilant sold-out First Avenue crowd that wasnʼt yet too drunk to not give its voracious support to the Brooklyn band opening for The National. In a way, it was the perfect thing to say to a crowd showing up for the second part of a two-night stand. Yeah, maybe he says it to every audience, but hey, it worked. In fact, everything kinda worked. There were sing-alongs and wine drunk from red plastic cups, a blissfully indulgent 22-song set and a guest appearance from Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who sat in for six songs, the highlight being his slide-guitar solo on The National's “90-Mile Water Wall.” It was a night full of drinking and carousing to big, bellowing music. And isnʼt that exactly what a National concert should be?

The band took the stage smiling sheepishly to the packed audience before kicking things off with “Runaway.” The National knows it has a strong fanbase in the Twin Cities, especially since Vernon sat in on this year’s High Violet. (The band stayed at his ranch in Eau Claire Thursday night.) Fast-forward five songs, and Matt Berninger and 1,300-odd maudlin voices were chanting, “Iʼm so sorry for everything,” in unison on “Baby, Weʼll Be Fine” from Alligator. And then it was time for more wine.

Flanked on his sides by the Dessner brothers, Berninger was his usual expressive self: twirling, gesturing, always seemingly on the edge of explosion or collapse. Berningerʼs drunkeness reflected the crowdʼs drunkeness, his feelings theirs. Heʼs as much a phenomenal performer as he is a 15-year-old kid brazenly blitzed on Schnapps and dancing to records in his basement. His constant gesticulations, his squinty, Popeye-like eyeing of the crowd, the march away from the mic for more wine, then back up again fast, then sitting on monitors, using the mic stand like a cane—itʼs all part of the Berninger package. His eruption into screaming on crowd favorites like “Mr. November,” “Abel,” or the night’s loudest sing-along, the “because Iʼm evil” line from “Conversation 16”—this is what the masses came for. And maybe it all sounds a bit too epic, but isnʼt that what this band is? People love The National because, in its finest moments, it can capture that fleeting, joyfully tipsy humanity, which seems to shimmer just a bit brighter than the humdrum of regular life.