Vancouver, Richard's on Richards June 29th, 2007
Soundcheck: Secret Meeting (first verse)
1. Start A War
2. Mistaken For Strangers
3. Secret Meeting
4. Brainy
5. Baby We'll Be Fine
6. Slow Show
7. Lit Up
8. Wasp Nest directly into...
9. All The Wine
10. Racing Like A Pro
11 Squalor Victoria
12. Apartment Story
13. Daughters of the Soho Riots
14. Fake Empire
15. Mr. November
E1. Karen
E2. Abel
E3. About Today
Sorry, I'm jotting this down from memory, so 8 through 12 could possibly be out of order. I'm 100% sure on the songs included, however. Sorry, I wish I owned a videocam/audio recorder, but I don't, so I have no bootlegs to share.
A few notes on the show:
- The Broken West were denied at the border, and were unable to open
- The National, themselves, weren't able to get to the club until about an hour before the doors opened, so they were forced to soundcheck in front of a packed house. After the first 30 seconds of Secret Meeting, the audience hollered, and Matt, in his usual dead-pan manner, said "Thanks...See you guys next time".
- After the soundcheck, the band took quite a while to take the stage. The show didn't begin until roughly 11:20pm. The crowd was getting plenty restless, as most of them weren't aware of the border situation. In terms of winning the crowd over, you could say they came in with a strike against them, BUT....
- They basically played a perfect set from there on out. Crowd was really into it, quiet song or loud it didn't really matter. Most annoying crowd moment was incessant clapping throughout all of About Today, but at least they were able to keep rhythm. EDIT: Just read a blog complaining about random idiots towards the back of the crowd who obviously came just to be seen. So I suppose it all depends on where you are. I just assume it's like that at every show.
- This was basically my dream setlist, in terms of balance between new and old, common and rare songs. Karen (yes, Karen, not City Middle
) came off very strong, I felt, and the audience responded accordingly. Wasp Nest was the unabbreviated rock-out version, and Bryan's drumming took the song directly into All The Wine. That was a pretty special moment. When Bryan continued drumming to close out Wasp Nest, I thought for a second they would go into Murder Me Rachael, like they sometimes did in the past, but he slowed the tempo and the first guitar riff came in, and the rest is history.
- Apartment Story was their new acoustic opening version that's on the NPR rip.
- Bryce was smiling almost the entire night, which was a pleasant surprise. He was regularly conversing with some people up front while tuning up, although I couldn't make out their conversation. Matt also cracked quite a few smiles in between songs. It was great to see them having a good time.
- Sound mix, as you would expect given they basically had to rush through soundcheck in front of a packed house, probably could have used some more work. Matt's vocals were a bit drowned out, and some of the things Padma was doing didn't really come out clearly. Still, not bad, and it didn't detract from the show for me.
- They confirmed they will be back in September.
