The National - Rockhal Box (Luxembourg) - 06.11.2013
It seems that the downside of people not queueing in Luxembourg is that they also don’t wait for the band after the gig. It might have increased my chances, but I really didn’t feel like standing there all alone, so no autographs or photos this time. Not that they were needed to keep this gig in very good memory! The support act (This Is The Kit, a four-piece band from Bristol) was a nice surprise as I hadn’t liked them after giving them a brief listen at home, but was much more impressed by their live performance. Surely going to give them another try. The National started with them being filmed backstage – which is probaly nothing extraordinary, but I had never seen it before and thought it was pretty cool. Luckily, I was allowed to take a photo of the setlist by one of the people who caught them, so here you go: I Should Live In Salt Don’t Swallow The Cap Sorrow Blood Buzz Demons Sea Of Love Hard To Find Afraid Of Everyone Conversation 16 Squalor Victoria I Need My Girl This Is The Last Time Abel Slow Show England Graceless Fake Empire About Today Pink Rabbits Encore: Humiliation Mr. November Terrible Love Perfect. It seems that Hard To Find was premiered that night, at least that’s what Aaron told us – mostly to fill the gap caused by Matt taking some time to come back for the encore (Matt: „Talking about hard to find – the bathrooms here... I had to climb 14 flights of stairs and by the time I got there, I had sweated it all out“ ;) ) Another cause for banter was that Matt’s foot apparantely got stuck somewhere when he went into the crowd during Mr. November. Back on stage, he complained about nobody noticing or trying to help him even though he had been „crying for help“. Matt: „I was like: Bryyyyyyyyce... Where were you?“ Bryce: „Playing the banjo.“ LOL This was my first The National gig and I had reason to remember that a friend once told me that Matt acted on stage like he was on drugs. Let’s hope that’s not true and he’s just high from the music (which would be perfectly understandable, wouldn’t it?). I definitely enjoyed watching him act like a maniac (no offense, obviously)! Not an easy job for the roadies though ;) It is also worth mentioning that the sound quality was great. Maybe because I had a really good spot, but I have not often heard the singer’s voice so clearly. Time to finally complete my collection (I own the last three albums) because a) it’s not acceptable that I didn’t know the lyrics to ALL of the songs and b) I’m sure there are some more gems to be found (I only started listening to About Today because I saw it on some earlier setlists and it very quickly became one of my favorites).