About this concert
Handsome Tours is thrilled to announce that The National will return to Australia in March and April 2020. The visit will see the band perform at stunning venues across the country, including three intimate nights in Melbourne's iconic Palais Theatre, two nights at Sydney's ICC, a performance at Brisbane's Fortitude Music Hall and an evening under the stars at Fremantle Arts Centre.
The tour will celebrate the release of The National's eighth studio album I Am Easy To Find - out now via Remote Control Records / 4AD.
Formed in 1999, the Ohio-raised, Brooklyn-based band consists of vocalist Matt Berninger plus two pairs of brothers: Aaron Dessner (guitar, bass, piano) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).
The band's most recent release I Am Easy To Find was a collaborative project with director Mike Mills. The results are I Am Easy To Find, a 24-minute film by Mills starring Alicia Vikander, and I Am Easy To Find, a 68-minute album by The National. The former is not the video for the latter; the latter is not the soundtrack to the former. The movie was composed like a piece of music; the music was assembled like a film, by a film director. The frontman and natural focal point was deliberately and dramatically side staged in favour of a variety of female voices, nearly all of whom have long been in the group’s orbit. It is unlike anything either artist has ever attempted and also totally in line with how they’ve created for much of their careers. The two projects are, as Mills calls them, “Playfully hostile siblings that love to steal from each other”—they share music and words and DNA and impulses and a vision about what it means to be human in 2019, but don’t necessarily need one another. I Am Easy To Find was produced by Mike Mills and The National at Long Pond, Hudson Valley, NY.
The National's triumphant previous visit to Australia in 2018 included sold-out performances at Sydney Opera House Forecourt, Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl and Brisbane's Riverstage. For their upcoming tour, the band will nestle into their most intimate Australian venues in a decade, delivering fans the raw intensity and emotion of their live show, up-close-and-personal like never before. Be quick - tickets will not last!
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First Two Pages of Frankenstein
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I Am Easy to Find
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Boxer - Live in Brussels
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Sleep Well Beast
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Trouble Will Find Me
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High Violet
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High Violet
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Boxer
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Alligator
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The National
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Cherry Tree EP
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Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers
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What fans are saying
Nicole
March 7th 2024
Had the time of my life, so good to finally see them live after all these years. Impressed by the way they changed set list for every show and paid homage to their full repertoire of albums
Melbourne, Australia@Sidney Myer Music Bowl
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The National Biography
The National are some friends and two pairs of brothers from Cincinnati, Ohio, who started making music in 1999 when they found themselves living near one another again in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Matt Berninger sings because he's taller, blonder, and older than the rest - Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner and Scott Devendorf play guitar and bass, while Bryan Devendorf drums. Padma Newsome, who's from Australia, has become a fairly permanent fixture too, and plays keyboards and violins and other stranger things.
They weren't looking to take over the world with a demo and matching outfits. Rather, music was their way of letting off steam from those good jobs. Records are what they talked about when they went out drinking together, when they ate together, when they played wiffle ball in the summertime. Simply put, songwriting allowed The National to deepen their conversations. It's how they broached the topics they really wanted to talk about -- how they were past the halfway mark between twenty and thirty and speeding toward a kind of permanence they never expected; how they pleased and disappointed their mothers and fathers; how flings had become girlfriends, and girlfriends, wives.
Their self-titled debut album "The National" (Brassland 2001) was recorded and released before they had played even a single show, before the music spilled far from their heads. They cut the album with engineer Nick Lloyd and formed a label with writer Alec Bemis, so those recordings could be released. Not much really happened, except for the UK's Kerrang magazine unexpectedly giving it four Ks, calling it "the stuff underground legends are made of"...
The National made a second album, "Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers" (Brassland/Talitres 2003). The staff was the same, though Peter Katis, who produced both Interpol records, helped produce and mix, and Australian composer Padma Newsome from Clogs collaborated on arrangements and strings. Rolling Stone and many other magazines noticed this one, and when it made its way to Europe, magazines the band had never heard of began saying it was one of the year's best.
Following the first session of several for Bernard Lenoir on France's Radio Inter, an in-between EP was released, Cherry Tree, containing what would become the blueprint for the sound on their next record and the session of Sad Song's standout Murder Me Rachael. After these accolades and being completlely blown away by their live show, Roger Trust signed them to Beggars Banquet.
A show at their favorite bar became a van ride to neighboring cities, became a plane ride to Europe, became two summers overseas. Their ties to those good jobs slackened. And they continue on their own path, moving out even further out in Brooklyn to Ditmas Park, where there is space and familiar suburban streets and even Geese on Beverly Road. Their new album, "Alligator", much of which was recorded at their homes in Ditmas Park, was engineered by Paul Mahajan, who has worked with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio. Padma Newsome camped out for a month with the band, and Peter Katis added more production and mixed the record at his house in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Berninger's potent baritone still intones about matters fraught and funny and sad; about record collections, missing persons and medium-sized American hearts. But the record's not simply gothic or miserablist -- more like the plays of Tennessee Williams, it's full of peculiar intimacies and awkward grace. Alligator's heroes are reckless and possessed seducers, but they are apologetic ones. In The National's imaginings, in songs alternately lush and spare, there is something twighlit and dreamy worked out in the basement of our brains.
'Abel', 'Secret Meeting' and 'Lit Up' were released as singles.
On May 22nd, 2007, The National released their follow-up to Alligator, Boxer, on Beggars Banquet. Taking advantage of the fact that no-one had heard their first album and earliest demos, Matt proceeded to steal lyrics and melodies from them and give them the attention they deserved while keeping the intimacy that made them special. They even managed to convince new friend Sufjan Stevens to lay down some piano tracks for them, and recorded the album in a scant 6 months after coming off the long post-Alligator road. Peter Katis was again at the helm and Bryan's drumming is particurlarly punchy this time around.
Thus far, 'Mistaken for Strangers' and 'Apartment Story' have been released as singles. The band have just finished touring North America and are on a large European autumn/winter tour after playing high slots at several large festivals. In their Dec. 07/Jan. 08 issue, Paste magazine named Boxer best record of 2007.
The National homepage: http://www.americanmary.com/
Brassland homepage: http://brassland.org/
Beggars Banquet homepage: http://www.beggars.com/
Read MoreThey weren't looking to take over the world with a demo and matching outfits. Rather, music was their way of letting off steam from those good jobs. Records are what they talked about when they went out drinking together, when they ate together, when they played wiffle ball in the summertime. Simply put, songwriting allowed The National to deepen their conversations. It's how they broached the topics they really wanted to talk about -- how they were past the halfway mark between twenty and thirty and speeding toward a kind of permanence they never expected; how they pleased and disappointed their mothers and fathers; how flings had become girlfriends, and girlfriends, wives.
Their self-titled debut album "The National" (Brassland 2001) was recorded and released before they had played even a single show, before the music spilled far from their heads. They cut the album with engineer Nick Lloyd and formed a label with writer Alec Bemis, so those recordings could be released. Not much really happened, except for the UK's Kerrang magazine unexpectedly giving it four Ks, calling it "the stuff underground legends are made of"...
The National made a second album, "Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers" (Brassland/Talitres 2003). The staff was the same, though Peter Katis, who produced both Interpol records, helped produce and mix, and Australian composer Padma Newsome from Clogs collaborated on arrangements and strings. Rolling Stone and many other magazines noticed this one, and when it made its way to Europe, magazines the band had never heard of began saying it was one of the year's best.
Following the first session of several for Bernard Lenoir on France's Radio Inter, an in-between EP was released, Cherry Tree, containing what would become the blueprint for the sound on their next record and the session of Sad Song's standout Murder Me Rachael. After these accolades and being completlely blown away by their live show, Roger Trust signed them to Beggars Banquet.
A show at their favorite bar became a van ride to neighboring cities, became a plane ride to Europe, became two summers overseas. Their ties to those good jobs slackened. And they continue on their own path, moving out even further out in Brooklyn to Ditmas Park, where there is space and familiar suburban streets and even Geese on Beverly Road. Their new album, "Alligator", much of which was recorded at their homes in Ditmas Park, was engineered by Paul Mahajan, who has worked with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio. Padma Newsome camped out for a month with the band, and Peter Katis added more production and mixed the record at his house in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Berninger's potent baritone still intones about matters fraught and funny and sad; about record collections, missing persons and medium-sized American hearts. But the record's not simply gothic or miserablist -- more like the plays of Tennessee Williams, it's full of peculiar intimacies and awkward grace. Alligator's heroes are reckless and possessed seducers, but they are apologetic ones. In The National's imaginings, in songs alternately lush and spare, there is something twighlit and dreamy worked out in the basement of our brains.
'Abel', 'Secret Meeting' and 'Lit Up' were released as singles.
On May 22nd, 2007, The National released their follow-up to Alligator, Boxer, on Beggars Banquet. Taking advantage of the fact that no-one had heard their first album and earliest demos, Matt proceeded to steal lyrics and melodies from them and give them the attention they deserved while keeping the intimacy that made them special. They even managed to convince new friend Sufjan Stevens to lay down some piano tracks for them, and recorded the album in a scant 6 months after coming off the long post-Alligator road. Peter Katis was again at the helm and Bryan's drumming is particurlarly punchy this time around.
Thus far, 'Mistaken for Strangers' and 'Apartment Story' have been released as singles. The band have just finished touring North America and are on a large European autumn/winter tour after playing high slots at several large festivals. In their Dec. 07/Jan. 08 issue, Paste magazine named Boxer best record of 2007.
The National homepage: http://www.americanmary.com/
Brassland homepage: http://brassland.org/
Beggars Banquet homepage: http://www.beggars.com/
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