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A night as a civilian – Fleet Foxes and The National

by 28 Comments

Venue:

The Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne

Date: 05/03/2024

Ordinarily, I am your classic Afterworder attending a gig: I’ve got at least a few of the artists albums, I know the band members and their biography and have had a good listen to their recent album in advance of the show. Not tonight. My daughter had a spare ticket so I went along as company as much as anything. It was a beautiful early autumn day – 32 Celsius in the day and 24ish in the evening. This was fortunate as we were on the lawn at Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

Fleet Foxes. Like many people I have the first album and the EP Helplessness Blues (I think it was an EP). I saw them at their peak at a pub venue with those soaring vocals – Mykonos, White Winter Hymnal etc still in memory. Then I sorta lost interest. It seems they did too with band changes and a hiatus while Robin Pecknold went to Uni for a degree. On they came as support for The National. Pecknold effusive in saying thank you, thanks for having us, but that is all he seemed to say apart from saying “the National – expect the best show you will ever see” Hyperbole? Let’s see. Anyway, Fleet Foxes. They have brass in the band now (did they have brass before?) who also does vocals (of course). The set was a bit meh for a good third of the gig with the sound not great and Pecknold’s voice a bit rough. But the sound got better and those trademark crystal vocals emerged. The last part of the set was less choral and more groove oriented and as such it got more interesting. They squeezed 16 songs into their slot with their let’s get down to business approach and overall, it was pretty good.

While my daughter performed the role of vodka and tonic wench, doing the bar run I lay on the rug watching seagulls and the occasional fruit bat circling in a clear sky on a still night.

With little notice, on came The National and, as expected, everyone on the lawn stood up. Being vertically challenged we decamped in search of a better spot eventually settling on a spot right at the back (see photo) but on a platform so we were above the massed throng and the sound floated above them. First thing I noticed was how much clearer Matt Berninger’s vocals were than on record. Given the primacy of lyrics that has always been a bugbear with their recorded stuff. He’s a bit of a performer too. Dashing round the stage and by song 2he had dived into the front rows. Song 2! OK, Nick Cave is a miserable bastard most of the time and does plenty of thrashing but I was expecting something more sedate a la Laughing Len. There was far more grunt in their sound too. It reminded me of Magazine and other electro guitar sounds from the eighties. So ill-researched was I that I had no idea the band comprised twin brothers on guitars and 2 other brothers on bass and drums. Being miles back I had little idea who dominated the playing but it was damn good. However, after about 30-40 minutes it all got a bit samey. Especially his vocals. First support for the night, American Anne Hamilton came on and duetted on one song and I see they do that a bit but they need more vocal variation. I don’t think anyone else in the band does any singing. I could be wring on this but it doesn’t sound like it.

The crowd at the front sounded like they were having a good time but it didn’t appear to the punters up the back – not much clapping, little whooping, just standing there. Oh yeah. Remember that platform we were on – turns out it was to a bar. And who hangs around near the bar while a band is on? Pissed bastards mainly, who as the night wears on talk more and more and become more irritating. So, with a few songs to go we departed. It was a good night with Fleet Foxes getting more interesting as their set progressed and The National getting less interesting.

The audience:

Quite a mix. Millenial and older.

It made me think..

I love Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Lenny C -what is it about the monotone of this bloke that puts me off?

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Comments

  2. Good for you for making up the numbers Junes. Parental time well spent I expect, particularly hanging out at the back with all the drunk morons around. I can’t say that I’d have made the same effort for either or both of those bands, but I envy the pair of you that gorgeous weather and an evening out under the stars – and bats – without the need for waterproofs, boots and thermal underwear.

  3. Cheers for the review, Mr Wells. Good one!
    Fleet Foxes did indeed release an early EP around the time of the first album (2008), but it was called “Sun Giant”.
    “Helplessness Blues” (2011) was their second full-length album.

  4. I can see what you mean about the National sounding samey. They plough the same rock furrow most of the time, which I’ve seen aptly described as “sad dad”. If you like that – and I do – then they are the band for you, just don’t expect funk workouts or avant garde jazz.

    Having said that their last record “Laugh Track” does depart from the palette occasionally in a good way, with some country tinges. Think Wilco around Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

  5. You write a good review, thanks mate. I like the National and have a couple.of their albums – even covered I Need That Girl for a while in a trio with guitar and drums.

    Thought about buying tix to the gig, but way too expensive when I wasn’t confident the band’s music would engage played live – even in that beautiful setting. But it nonetheless sounds like a very pleasant parental experience!
    Besides recognising their name, I know nothing about Fleet Foxes.

  6. You write a good review, thanks mate. I like the National and have a couple.of their albums – even covered I Need That Girl for a while in a trio with guitar and drums.

    Thought about buying tix to the gig, but way too expensive when I wasn’t confident the band’s music would engage played live – even in that beautiful setting. But it nonetheless sounds like a very pleasant parental experience!
    Besides recognising their name, I know nothing about Fleet Foxes.

  7. Don’t really know The National. Saw the Fleet Foxes last year at a festival, they had the opposite effect on me, as the set went on I gradually lost interest. Nice enough but a little too samey for me.

  8. I’m a big Fleet Foxes fan.
    On Record Store Day next month they’ve got a triple live LP coming out: “Live on Boston Harbor”. If it was a reasonably priced double CD, it would be an automatic purchase for me, but an exorbitantly priced RSD triple vinyl? I think I’ll pass….

  9. Interesting review. I would have had Fleet Foxes headlining and The National as the support.
    Have The National managed to find a tune yet?
    Wanted so much to love them but they do nothing to endear me to their music which is dirge like and without any lightness.

  10. Helpful review: I’m a big fan of tha National, mainly for Berninger’s lugubrious marmite voice. The 2 latest albums are up to the standard of their older stuff, but Berningers recent ish solo album surpasses any of the group stuff: my album of whenever, 2022 possibly, for good reason. Live I have “seen” them twice: a corking slot at ZGlasto, witnessed at home on telly, and live, at AllPoints East in about 2018. Which was muddy and dull. In the glaringly hot sunshine late afternoon into evening. They tour again this summer. I shan’t bother.

  11. I think that AllPoints East gig we were both at and it put me off for life. Much prefer Willard Grant Conspiracy who have some similarities but were better and sadly missed.

  12. I saw their last tour at the Opera House a few years back (a middle one since then being axed due to Covid) and, while I loved it – balmy night on the Harbour, positive reception of the Sleep Well Beast album – I didn’t feel the need to go again, even with the offer of a spare last minute ticket from a former student on the day.

    I agree about Berninger’s saminess, but underlines the issue I’ve been having with them: it’s the music that’s also become samey, so it fails to throw his vocals into the same interesting landscapes. of the first handful of albums. The drummer appears to have pissed off the guitarist/.producers, so a dynamic and very interesting post-punk spirited sticksman is sidelined for understated glitchy bubbly drum programs. While it can be done well by some artists, for these guys an intriguing bruised middle aged mood does not a song make, much less a (usually overlong) album.

    Live they seem to counter this well; an excellent youtube video of “…Frankenstein” played live and in order is a far more satisfying document of the band than the album. Berninger really comes to the fore as a frontman and his delivery is more dynamic.

    Maybe the Desner brothers have been keeping all of their really good ideas for Taylor Swift?

  13. Thanks for a very enjoyable review, Junior. What a treat to enjoy a few minutes of Australian summer.

    I’ve seen both Fleet Foxes and the National a couple of times. And strangely enough, they are both oddly inconsistent.

    When they get it right, they can be superb.

    FF , for example, along with their own excellent songs did a magnificent cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams at Roskilde in 2006.

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