Pictures from a few hours ago:

http://kanoshiro.blogspot.com/2008/02/national-bam-222.html

(more pictures under my Facebook page - just PM and ill send you the link)

Although it was a seated audience, BAM harbors a nice ambiance. My Brightest Diamond was the opening act...I find her to be a mix of Bjork/PJ Harvey/Imogen Heap/J. Newsom.

Nevertheless, an awesome concert with two encores, and thanks to (talkingtowalls) for the pair of tickets...Furthermore, was escorted out by security after being falsely accused of recording videos.

By the way, it was the usual setlist. Although there was no "ALL THE WINE", my National withdrawal had been cured...temporarily.

Start A War
Brainy
Baby We'll Be Fine
Slow Show
Secret Meeting
Mistaken For Strangers
Squalor Victoria
Abel
Wasp's Nest
Racing Like A Pro
Apartment Story
Ada
Karen
Fake Empire
(E1) City Middle
(E1) Mr. November
(E1) About Today
(E2) Gospel

Enjoy!

My recording came out quite nice. I will track and flac it tomorrow morning/afternoon. Check my site tomorrow afternoon for download instructions.

[edit]
Tracking it down now, and noticed that Morrissey's setlist has the position of Ada and Apartment Story switched. Ada was first. And there's another song before Karen, a song title that I can't pick out-- "nobody knows where you are baby, you're so far around the [bend?]"

wow, great lights! I'd love to see the guys playing with My Brightest Diamond! you lucky people!

Last night:
http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=128

Thanks for sharing this! Although it's not obvious from this post, once you follow the link to NYCtaper's site you will see that a "new song" was evidently played late in the show. Exciting!

Any word on if 2/23 was taped?

Can anyone upload this in an idiot friendly winzip file?

Exciting news about the new song, I do remember one being played last year on same dates so it might be the same one.

Some photos on Pitchfork

Nope. New new brand new. I was at the Saturday 2/23 show and Matt said something like "this is the second time we've played this song, last night was the first."

So no one taped on Saturday? I'm not smart enough to know how so, you know, not me... but I'd love to be able to get others' thoughts on how the two shows differed. On Sat., Matt said that the band had been feeling kind of shy on Friday but were over it in time for Saturday. Sure looked that way to me. Awesome energy, I thought. Especially when Matt walked out into the crowd in the middle of Mr. November (up until then I'd been feeling pretty clever about my front-row-mezzanine seats). And a minute of banter from Matt addressing the weirdness of sitting vs. standing in a venue like that, very early in the show, was a nice icebreaker. Once given "permission" a decent portion of the crowd DID stand. People are funny.

Set list was slightly different, maybe only for the encores though I wasn't keeping real track. We got Daughters of the Soho Riots, I believe in place of About Today at the end of the first encore. Then two songs at the second encore. Gospel as on Friday, then About Today to close, curing the selfish heart attack I nearly had when I thought I wouldn't get to hear what is maybe my favorite National song (Daughters is nice and everything but the only thing I might've loved more than About Today would've been Cherry Tree, which I bet is just *lethal* live).

If you're the asshole who screamed "FREEBIRD!" near the end: was that really your very best attempt at scoring a net gain for your cool quotient? And if so, how's that working out for you? Inquiring minds want to know.

Ha ha ha ha ha! There's a great moment on the Modest Mouse live bootleg "Baron von Bullshit" where some dolt yells "Freebird!" and Isaac Brock goes into a long dissertation about why, exactly, they will never play that song. Classic.

So I'm guessing if you're on this thread then you live in NYC. I have an extra ticket for TN show at NYU tonight at eight. All I ask is that the person who takes the ticket, other than reimbursing my 8 dollars, be at least almost as big a fan as me. As in were almost moved to tears by the awesomeness that was BAM

Clb327@nyu.edu

What is with guys and freebird and this band?

At the Seaport show in August, a guy behind me actually said "You know what I love? When people shout Freebird at concerts. I fucking love it dude!" And there was ZERO sarcasm in his voice. It was legit. So the question is, what's worse? Shouting Freebird? Or liking it when others do it?

The highlight of the Saturday show was Matt running into the crowd and standing on the chair during "Mr. November".

Last night I went to see Mike Doughty, and some random lunatic kept shouting a request for "It's Raining Men". Mike finally responded to the guy by asking "It's Raining Men?". The lunatic shouted back "It's Raining Men is the new Freebird!"

It was sort of funny, but mostly sad and stupid. However, now I can't stop claiming that pretty much everything is "the new Freebird".

Hate those f*ckers. Why do they have to ruin the fun for everyone?




Sorry.... drunk.... sleepy... YAAWN...