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Last Christmas two of my very best and most valued friends completely surprised, and overwhelmed, me by buying me a ticket (VIP no less) to see The National with them (Cheryl and Darren) at the All Points East festival in Victoria Park. It was a gift that I currently can't repay but it was a gift I was very very grateful for. Even if, at the time, June seemed a long way away.
The National - The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness
Then, on the morning of the gig, my nan died and, briefly, I wondered if, perhaps, I shouldn't go. My nan was ninety-four and had been ill for some time and in a care home for nearly four years. It was sad news but it wasn't shocking news. There was nothing I could achieve by not going to the gig and, in fact, would sitting around moping all day really be what my nan would've wanted? I'd like to think not.
When I was a kid I used to go and visit Nan and she'd regularly get the accordion out and regale us with a few tunes. It was my first experience of live music and, clearly, it planted a seed within me that has now grown not just into a huge oak but an almighty forest. What could be a more apt way to toast her passing than spending the day with good friends, raising a beer in her memory, and enjoying some live music myself. It made sense to me.
All Points East certainly seem to be a slick and professional organisation. Plenty of toilets, no crush at the bar, slightly overpriced beer, and, in the case of the grilled cheese sandwiches, very overpriced food. They'd pretty much taken over Victoria Park for the last few weekends with a series of gigs featuring some very strong line ups. Headline performances from The XX, LCD Soundsystem, Bjork, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and, er, Catfish & the Bottlemen with support across those days coming from acts as varied and as exciting as The Psychedelic Furs, Beck, Courtney Barnett, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bo Ningen, Brix & the Extricated, Chromeo, Justice, Rhye, Django Django and Alexis Taylor. It was hard to pick a day. Although obviously not the Catfish & the Bottlemen one.
Once we'd convened for a pint in the sunny, and lively, beer garden of The People's Park Tavern we headed off into the arena. As we skirted the perimeter face we could hear former Vampire Weekend man Rostam close out what sounded like a pretty decent set - and what sounded not unlike his former band. Rostam left VW in 2014 and since then they've yet to release an album giving a clue as to how integral his contribution was to the erudite and preppy kwassa kwassa art rockers.
We had a quick look around the arena, got our bearings, and checked out the VIP area. Cleaner toilets, a nicer bar, comfier seats, and tablecloths were the order of the day. We'd be back but we were really here to see the bands so soon we were in front of the main, or East, stage watching a fairly unimpressive lot called Amber Run go through their fairly standard indie rock motions.
Over at the North stage things were picking up with Public Service Broadcasting. A band easily, and not entirely incorrectly, dismissed as the aural equivalent of a KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON t-shirt they nevertheless retain an alarming level of popularity. The danger of appearing like one trick ponies and churning out ever reducted facsimilies of songs that Colourbox and Pop Will Eat Itself did better twenty to thirty years ago has been assuaged by branching out into British Sea Poweresque concept albums about the coal industry. Despite Darren's 'bow tie alert' they just about pulled it off. In places euphoric, other times rocking a motorik beat that Klaus Dinger would be if not proud of at least able to recognise as one of his progeny. Maybe it's time they knocked all that Mr Cholmondley-Warner shit on the head though. We've all seen The Chap, had a little giggle, and moved on.
Public Service Broadcasting - Progress
Broken Social Scene were the first band to really get things going. Whilst their sound got blown around in the breeze in places and they had to curtail their usual epic set length they still managed to get over some of the genius of the band. 7/4 Shoreline would remain tune of the day until at least a couple of songs into The National's set.
Kevin Drew must've been sweltering in his denim jacket but Brendan Canning struck his trademark axe hero poses with the ease of a man who rarely gets through a song without pointing the neck of his guitar skywards at least three times. Superconnected, Texico Bitches, Cause = Time, and Halfway Home were all lovingly rendered and received but Anthems for a Seventeen-Year Old Girl really suffered the wrath of the sound gremlins.
Broken Social Scene - 7/4 Shoreline
Broken Social Scene - Anthems For A Seventeen-Year Old Girl
We headed back to the East stage, via the bar and the free sun tan lotion stall of course, where Cat Power was already stretching out her gorgeous Georgian vowels over two microphones and several syllables. I'd hoped she'd play Lived in Bars and The Greatest but she didn't.
It didn't matter too much. It was all about the voice. A closing trio of Song to Bobby, the surprisingly uptempo (for Chan Marshall anyway, she's not really an uptempo kind of performer) Manhattan, and, best of all, the broken hearted death country blues of Good Woman. The lines "I don't want be a bad woman and I can't stand to see you be a bad man. I will miss your heart so tender and I will love this love forever" sending a chill up my spine.
Cat Power - Good Woman
Warpaint - Love Is To Die
Warpaint have long reminded me of a slightly gothier Throwing Muses. They have a great sound but sometimes I think they're lacking in songs. Or at least they don't have one absolute stand out killer tune. They sounded great on the North stage, though, and Love is to Die had a more muscular feel than I'd recalled and Billie Holiday, as ever, erred just the right side of quirky and kooky. A qualified success.
Which is more than I can say for Future Islands. A Fast Show sketch that's long since ceased being funny but is still repeated ad infinitum by that bore that props up the bar in your local pub. It's kind of admirable that they've got so far with, seemingly, so little and of course I enjoyed THAT Letterman performance. I'm only human.
But skittering synth beats, a bit of dad dancing, and occasional (and when I say occasional I mean you could set your watch by them) forays into GWAR style faux death metal theatrical hollering, it's all getting a bit tired. Seasons (Waiting for You) still has a kind of awkward charm, like the fat kid scoring the winning goal in school, but most of the other songs don't really deviate from the formula. Even if the formula is an utterly fucking weird one.
Future Islands - Seasons (Waiting On You)
The War On Drugs - Under The Pressure
The fact we sat backstage when they played does not make us better people than you (although perhaps it does negate my review a little). In the VIP area we met a guy from Manchester who'd spilt the best part of a bottle of red wine down his grey t-shirt and the former drummer of Whiteout and his mate from Greenock who weren't really interested in The National at all and were just on a jolly.
It was a nice atmosphere though and Cheryl got introduced to Scott Devendorf of The National and had a brief chat with him. I really should've taken a photo. My mate TC wouldn't have let an opportunity like that slip.
Over at the North stage The War On Drugs had commanded an immense crowd for their strangely affecting cross of heartland rock and krautrock. Ever wondered what Bruce Springsteen would sound like with Neu! as his backing band? Wonder no more. It's not like you're not familiar with them by now.
Under the Pressure seemed to encapsulate what it is they do best of all and if the stage side screens weren't kind to Adam Granduciel's prematurely gnarled face (at just thirty-nine years old) the atmosphere and the fact we were outdoors did work in their favour.
We didn't hang around for long as it was time to get a good spot for The National. Kicking off with Nobody Else Will Be There before launching into The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness it was clear that this gig was being treated like some kind of homecoming (even if the band hail from Cincinatti) or a triumphant lap of honour and one that Jurgen Klopp, sorry Matt Berninger, fully intended to enjoy. And why not? They'd earned it.
The National - The Day I Die
From the pulsing electronics and Jarvis Cockereseque lyrical delivery of Walk It Back, via the elegiac I Need My Girl, the funeral march of Carin at the Liquor Store, the shuffling Graceless, and the chugging Squalor Victoria, The National showed how good they've become at melding Americana, indie rock, and stadium sized anthems while, simultaneously, retaining the air of ordinary Joes.
Bloodbuzz Ohio was the first time I 'got' The National, one of the first times I'd ever heard them, and played in Victoria Park more than eight years after High Violet's 2010 release, it still sounded pretty huge. Berninger's voice does the heavy lifting with this tale of standing "up straight at the foot of your love", still owing "money to the money to the money I owe", and how he "never thought about love when I (he) thought about home". I both sang along and nodded my head in recognition of its sentiment.
These five middle aged men singing songs about grown up relationships, insecurities, love, and death seem to have struck just the right tone for our unsure times and with The Day I Die imbued it with an articulate rage, "Don't do this, I don't do this to you, don't expect me to enjoy it", a non sequitur non pareil, "I get a little punchy with the vodka just like my great uncle Valentine Jester did", and a bridge that indicates both hope and destruction can come in the form of drink and drugs, "Let's just get high enough to see our problems. Let’s just get high enough to see our fathers’ houses", all set to a fairly epic guitar fuelled thrash that was, without doubt, the tune of the day.
The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
Thanks so much to my incredibly loyal and generous friends Darren and Cheryl for this wonderful gift that just, coincidentally, happened to be redeemed on a pretty emotional day. I was carried back home to Honor Oak Park by a swarm of bees*.
*Transport for London.
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