The world's best wedding band

This is the National playing "Apartment Story," probably my favorite song on Boxer.

I saw them last Monday night and they were pretty solid. The context and stagecraft (given that they were playing Summerstage in front of an enormous photosensitive painting) was more notable than the music, generally. This song was, as might be expected, a big highlight of the set. The way it gradually rolls towards its big melodic crest and then subsides played very nicely in a crowd full of people singing discreetly along. The kids behind me thought the band could easily have stretched the song-ending breakdown out a few more minutes, which I think was correct.

I was supposed to see the concert with a good friend, but her fancy-pants consulting job called her away at the last minute and since the passes were in her name I went by myself. It wasn't the greatest move. I like seeing movies by myself, but concerts are for me much more social experiences, and I really missed the companionship. I kind of thought I might run into some people I knew but apparently I've lost track of the scene. Overall the experience made me feel like some sort of corporate ghost. Certainly the weight of leaving New York - the sense that I'm disinvesting from the social life here in preparation for moving on - weighed heavily. I did see one person, a guy I used to chat with and cadge smokes off of back when I was the youngest kid at the Dugout, but he didn't recognize me and I didn't approach.

"You get mistaken for strangers/
by your own friends/
when you pass 'em at night/
under the silvery, silvery citibank lights."

Indeed.