L.A. Report: Fake Empire

Took a road trip. Needed to be in Southern California this summer, to check on the Pacific Ocean (still quite pacific despite the choppy waves today), and used a show by The National at the outdoor Greek Theater as a rallying point for a long weekend. The boys played to a rather laid-back crowd, leaning heavily on 2010's "High Violet." They also workshopped about a dozen new songs that sound like they can continue the band's 11-year streak of great albums.

It's always been hard for me to describe the band. Moody pop, I say. They write songs like REM did, and there's a fine, sophisticated melodic thread through both bands. Maybe a cross between REM and Radiohead. Lead singer Matt Berninger was the master of ceremonies, rescuing a beetle from the stage and handing it to a front-row fan for safekeeping and referring to it regularly. (The band missed an opportunity for a Beatles cover; instead we got a slack Grateful Dead cover, "Morning Dew," from some compilation.)

The old stuff mostly held up. They thoroughly trashed "Squalor Victoria," but they seemed a little bored with "Mr. November," which just wasn't anthemic like I'd hoped. Berninger dedicated a song to America during its election throes (not, as I expected, "Fake Empire") -- "I'm afraid of everyone ... But I don't have the drugs to sort it out." Nice. Toward the end Annie "St. Vincent" Clark came out for a duet, a trippy song apparently called "Prom Song 13th Century," a title Berninger seemed to make up on the spot, with the refrain, "I'm gonna keep you in love with me for a while." Spin Mag was there to capture it on video. At first, hearing the opening lines, I thought they were covering Bob Dylan's "Threw It All Away" ("She said she would always ... stayyy").

It was all mellow like the Seventies.

BONUS TRACK
The now-traditional song to close the encore, an acoustic sing-along version of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks," and it went pretty much like this: