The National at NYU...

...was well worth it.

Smoothly run and with just the right amount of people population NYU's E&L's auditorium, the National (with openers Phosphorescent and Maps and Atlases) turned out quite a successful show on Thursday night. With their week of performances sold out, NYU's show was perfect for the less meticulous of fans who don't happen to check ohmyrockness every day for sold out concerts. And though the show was open to non NYU students, those who fall into that category may have been reluctant to attend the concert for fear of the preponderance of youngsters (which is an irrational and, essentially, arrogant fear), or simply because they didn't believe that a gig held in a college auditorium could live up to their expectations (also irrational, as it turned out, but perhaps more legitimate).

Both Phosphorescent and Maps and Atlases gave the crowd (the pleasingly large crowd, with one bumping just enough shoulders to make it feel like a real concert, but not enough for it to be obnoxious) a good setting for the headliner, and a hell of a performance, in and of itself. The general consensus was that Maps and Atlases was a surprise winning performance, with their quirky, offbeat sounding ditties making even the most stonefaced of adolescents bob their heads.
Their sound wasn't the obvious choice as opener for the National, but juxtaposed with what Phosphorescent presented, it proved to be a good spark to set fire to the rest of the night's performances. Phosphorescent was the perfect segeway between the odd pop sound of Maps and Atlases and the more subdued, melancholic sound of the National. It was clear, however, that they were a bit more experimental than most traditional National fans would have liked. The most obnoxious (or perhaps intoxicated) of concertgoers decided they would like to shout insults at the stage, as if that would help bring the National out faster, and the least just decided to leave (which, as it were, was an extremely idiotic move on their part).

The National's performance was trance inducing. And watching from above, that's exactly what the crowd looked like... glassy-eyed, immersed, transfixed wholly on the performance. They scarcely moved, but it was not out of boredom, or some sort of high brow study. They were gaping, and very, very into what was going on, drawn like moths to the flame the National set on stage. The National was moving. A certain sadness dripped from every chord and every lyric, and it created something so personal for every individual watching. It was almost anticipatory, as if everyone was hanging on, waiting for some cataclysmic moment in the unbelievable restraint that the National exercises in their music, to no avail. The end of the set was a beautiful frustration, a need for more while knowing that was all you'd get.