The National - First Two Pages... & Laugh Track Album • Page 87

When I saw them last year the crowd sat down the entire time. The guy directly in front of me stood up, so I stood up to see and goddamn people got so mad at me lmao. Some dude was throwing popcorn it was so sad. Stand up it’s a concert!

 

Chicago dates last year were so much better, everyone standing for the whole set. I don't know if it's the size of the venue or what last night but it was awful.

 

I went to the Chicago show a few nights ago and all I can say is I've seen this band more than any artist in my life, and I feel like their crowds have just gotten progressively worse over the years. The people who were super into the War on Drugs the other night however were very fun lol

 

Maybe it's the size of the venues. Auditorium Theater shows were great last year. But yeah, there's also a gap between TWOD fans and National fans that I don't think I was fully aware of.

 

Yeah that's funny you mention those shows because the one Auditorium show I went to everyone was super cool and most people stood the entire time and I feel like it was the best crowd of theirs I had seen in a while. So maybe "progressively worse" isn't entirely accurate, but still, generally speaking the last few I've gone to other than auditorium a lot of people have been very...idk the word....persnickety or something

 

gilford pit crowd was great, compared to some other times i've seen them

 

Yeah, I get that. Pitchfork was fine, too, people were into it. Not sure if it's just that people are aging out of them or what.

 

I saw the National at some I Heart Radio multi-band lineup, alongside more mainstream artists like Beck and Mumford and Sons and Cage the Elephant, and people were getting up to get food/drinks during their set and it kinda killed the vibes. At one point, Matt went into the crowd and went to the front row and pushed up against the front of the gate/barrier and pretended to be an excited fan cheering for the other guys on stage. And it was funny because everyone around him was pretty non-plussed besides a few National fans strewn about. Lol.

Anyway, I know it wouldn’t be quite that egregious but a co-headlining situation where a significant number of attendees may not be National fans (and having to sit through a full headlining set from a band I am not that into) was enough for me to sit this one out. If I was a National and TWOD fan I would have def been amped though.

 

For what it's worth, at least in Chicago, it definitely felt like a National headlining show with War on Drugs opening

 

Nice. My wife also passed on the current Dashboard tour because it wasn’t clear how they were going to handle the seemingly co-headlining format with Boys Like Girls. We are pretty set in our ways with shows and really only have the energy for headlining tours by bands/people we are really really into.

 

Selling a couple tickets for Salt Lake City tomorrow for anyone interested