The National

OK, I've decided that I don't like work. It keeps getting in the way of all the fun I should be having. Maybe I should quit my job and just be a professional haver of fun? But then how would I pay for the fun? Shit. Maybe lottery tickets is the answer? Its up to $50 million.

The past week has been a grind. About 60 hours in my dead end job. But on Tuesday I stole away an evening and went to another concert. The National played Massey Hall and my roommate Shawn, our pal Carla, and her pal Tyler got tickets.

The show itself was totally unlike the LCD Soundsystem show we checked out two weeks ago. GA vs. assigned seating meant the crowd was much more subdued. Of course the musical style of The National is much more mellow than LCD Soundsystem, but that didn't stop the lead singer dude from encouraging all those jive honkies to leave their seats and rush the stage... to an acoustic song. So the one burly bouncer seated in front of the stage, who most likely assumed he had the easiest gig this side of a James Taylor concert, suddenly had 400 of the whitest, rhythmless, douchiest hipsters dancing like retards around him.

The concert itself was... errrrr... so-so. The sound quality was pretty shitty which is weird considering that Massey Hall is world renowned for its acoustics and such. I think the sound engineer maybe was fresh out of technical school or something. With LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy himself would be tinkering with the amps and computers and sound hookups after every song to get the best sound out, and it paid off. The National, on the other hand, was difficult to listen to and the lyrics were near impossible to understand for some songs.

The lead singer though did put on quite a display. Stumbling across stage, dancing like and epileptic, hurling the microphone stand to the ground. Quite the stage persona we thought...til we noticed the bottles of wine lined up by the drum kit. He was shit faced. It became more and more apparent while he drunkenly swayed while he held on desperately to the microphone stand. At a certain point he jumped/fell of the stage and "interacted" with the audience in the orchestra section. And by "interact" I mean he ran up the aisles and clotheslined a few dozen audience members with the microphone cord.

The whole show was fun to watch, but not so much for the music. I guess LCD Soundsystem spoiled us.