[photo courtesy of Steve/hightea]
I’ll admit to some trepidation about The National‘s three-year break between albums. After 2005’s excellent Alligator, the band’s brilliant Boxer (2007) is perhaps the best album of the entire last decade. The National toured steadily throughout 2008, and played two of the best shows we saw that year, at BAM in February and Summerstage in August. A relatively quiet 2009 and news of the new album led to a significant amount of anticipation — could the band meet the expectations and reach the bar they had raised so high after Boxer. The day that High Violet was streamed on the New York Times website (!), I felt an almost palpable sense of relief as I listened to the album straight through. The National had produced another stunning achievement — an album with songcraft equal or better than the band’s best material but with more confidence and maturity. High Violet is the album that cements The National as one of those few bands that will provide consistent quality music for as long as they choose to make it. At Terminal 5 last night, the band’s live show complimented the triumph of the new album with a performance of sustained excellence. The newer material blended well with the classics and in some instances shown brighter — “Lemonworld” reached a crowd-pleasing crescendo, “Bloodbuzz Ohio” was a show-stopper, and “Terrible Love” was a powerful show-closer.
We recorded this set with the Neumanns and the Schoeps in a four-mic configuration from a 12 foot stand in front of the soundboard cage. The sound in the cavernous venue was not quite up to our expectations, and while the recording has a lot of character, it lacks the clarity we expect. With those caveats, enjoy!
This Recording is now available to Download in FLAC and MP3 and to Stream at Archive.org [HERE].
The National
2010-07-29
Terminal 5
New York, NY USA
Four-Track Digital Master Recording
Recorded from Front of Soundboard Booth
Neumann KM-150s + Schoeps MK-41s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, EQ, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac
Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper and acidjack
2010-07-30
Setlist:
[Total Time 1:23:21]
01 [introduction]
02 Start A War
03 Anyone’s Ghost
04 Bloodbuzz Ohio
05 Mistaken For Strangers
06 Brainy
07 Squalor Victoria
08 [banter]
09 Afraid Of Everyone
10 Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
11 [banter]
12 Lemonworld
13 Conversation 16
14 Apartment Story
15 Abel
16 [banter]
17 England
18 Fake Empire
19 [encore break]
20 Runaway
21 Mr. November
22 [band introductions]
23 Terrible Love
If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT The National, visit their website, and purchase their official releases from The National’s Shop [HERE].
Thanks guys. I’ve been looking forward to listening to this ever since it was mentioned in most recent “Upcoming Schedule” post.
I really appreciate this recording. I will be attending the Aug 3rd show in Royal Oak, and seeing this makes me even more excited.
Cheers to those who still think taping is an art!
Tape sounds great. Well done on this one! It is already on repeat.
This is one of the most heartfelt reviews of High Violet and The National I’ve read yet. I had many of the same reactions to the album which I tried to describe in my review (http://bit.ly/cn1PpA) and am anxiously looking forward to seeing them twice this fall for the first time. Thank you so much for posting the recording and review.
The National are on the archive as of 9/18/10:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheNational
:)
This is a fantastic recording. Thank you so much, you captured a great night that I never want to forget!