The National - Royal Festival Hall, London, August 10th 2009

I'd looked forward to this gig for months: The National, live in London, their only show this summer in the UK. They're a band I fell in love with round about the time Alligator was set free in 2005 and I'd desperately wanted to see them since then. However, come Monday night all I wanted to do was get out of the office and not have the same conversation again:

Colleague: So, what you in London for? Meetings?
Me: No, going to a gig tonight.
C: Ah cool. Who is it?
Me: The National.
C: Who?
Me: The National. They're an American band.
C: Oh, right. What kind of music is it?
Me: Hard to say really. I guess rock, for want of a better word.
C: Nice. Enjoy.

By the end of the day I was asking myself just how I had ended up stumping up ninety quid on eBay for tickets to a band that no-one seems to have heard of. Therein lies one of the core truths of The National, people either know about them and obsess accordingly, or have never heard of them and shrug at the mention of their name. Like the music the band creates there is no middle ground: it's all or nothing.

Earlier, an already good day had taken an even better turn when I discovered Broken Records were the support act that night. They'd played a tiny gig just round the corner from my flat in Manchester a few weeks before but a lack of funds and a surfeit of hangover had kept me on the sofa. I'd since bought their album and regretted that decision but karma had patted me on the head and given me a second chance.

Lazy shorthand has labelled Broken Records "the Scottish Arcade Fire." I suppose that's inevitable for any band whose lineup includes a cello, violins and an accordion, especially once you throw in a penchant for emotionally charged songs with sweeping choruses: the handy pigeonhole is complete. To me they're more likely direct descendants of that epic Celtic bluster mastered by The Waterboys and U2 (before Bono took over the UN).

Despite being fronted by a singer bearing an uncanny resemblance to my former (evil) boss and having to contend with a constant dribble of people arriving, BR gave a good account of themselves. Starting with album highpoints Nearly Home and If The News Makes You Sad, Don't Watch It, it'd be a surprise if they hadn't gained a few new fans by the end of their forty minute set.

This is the point now where I'm supposed to start writing about The National's performance. I've set the scene, given the opening band their due and now it's time to crystalise the main event. I've been pacing around the flat working out how to do so and I'm no closer to an answer. It's nothing to do with the fact that I'm writing this five days after the event - I can see the whole show unfolding before me if I want. The second glass of wine I'm working through and the cigarettes I've smoked are irrelevant to this process too. It's somewhere between straightforward and profound: a lack of skill on my part and a concert of unnatural magnificence on theirs. Bastards.

Matt Berenger stalks the stage, a cross between Rainman and a demented crab. The rest of the band are equally at home veering between tightly bound melodies and cacophonous waves of noise. Berenger slips on spilt wine, clambers up walls and disappears into the audience during a rendition of Mr November that makes you think humanity might not be a lost cause after all. Two old blokes go nuts in one of the boxes, looking like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets on the kind of pure coke only police chiefs and Colombian overlords have access to. You know that in fifteen or twenty years children will be discovering The National's albums in their parents' record collections and their mum and dad will share a knowing look as they remember the night that lead to little Matt's conception.

I'm lying in bed at 3am after the gig listening to song after song again even though I know I have to be up at 6.30 to pack. It doesn't matter. It's The National. It doesn't matter that can listen to the songs any time, I have to listen to them now. I know I'll be tired in the morning but I also know that I can put on Alligator as I head into work and I'll be fine.

I think of the gig, of the conversations I had that day and of the fact no-one seems to know who The National are and I have mixed feelings. Part of me wants to keep it that way, introducing them to friends that I know will fall in love with the band in the same way I have, then pass the knowledge onto their friends. Another part of me wants them to stand astride the globe and rescue guitar music and emotive lyrics from the grasping, pallid hands of Cold Patrol and Snowplay. Thankfully, I reckon the latter is highly unlikely and this is probably a good thing. The National need investment on the part of the listener. They're not a band you'll hear in Tesco and be able to buy their album at the same time as your weekly grocery shop. They're a band that will enter your heart and mind and stay there as long as you have your health and faculties. Eventually you'll need to see them live and if you're lucky you will. You'll then know how little justice a review can do to the experience.