The National in the rain at 2pm, for crying steaks
Who goes to rock gigs at 2pm? I’d read that The National were doing a live recording at NYU in Soho and had tried to get us tickets but it was sold out, but we’re in NY for god sake, and it was a rainy Monday afternoon so I persuaded T we should get to the venue to see if there was standing room. Bingo.
I saw the band in Sydney a few years ago and like their layered, seductive melancholy music. They’re an erudite bunch and the epitome of Brooklyn cool now in their mid-30s with grown up lives and a huge following. As we entered a studio dominated by college kids (it was 2pm after all) with thick rimmed spectacles and flannel shirts, feelings of being a student visited me from remote corners of my memory.
It was a live recording from their new album High Violet which is out in a fortnight. They told themselves they were going to make a ‘pop’ record but there wasn’t much pop about it, same stormy guitars, muscular drums and drawly lyrics about love and living a bohemian life (in flannel shirts) – as good as ever but I’ll leave the critical analysis to you, BZ.
The gig was intimate and there was a lot of chat about their creative process – achieved for the main part through introspection, literature and drinking wine…then getting grumpy. I wanted to say to them, that’s called a hangover, but resisted.
In drowsy long sentences they explained how their music had accrued meaning as they recorded, how lyrics don’t necessarily need to have meaning but need to sound like they have meaning – try deconstructing “terrible love and I’m walking with spiders.” It’s a theory which has resonated, particularly since hearing Patti Smith sing about burnt moons and orange leaves last night, but that’s another story.
Back to the real world and I bought a fab black and white vintage belt for nix in Noho, we both got very wet and grumpy, a woman told us dirty jokes on a pelican crossing and persuaded us to go to have a pizza slice at Frankie’s. We did, and loved the $3 slices and Italians shouting at each other over dough. Clearly we are a beacon for restaurant recommendations, no matter how zany.
I have wanted to go to Anthony Bourdain’s Brasserie Les Halles ever since reading Kitchen Confidential and Tuesday was the night. It was rammed with carnivores and staff doing pirouettes around tables in denim shirts. Dim lighting, wood booths, white linen, amped up New Yorkers and one Manhattan down I was ready for whatever they plated up.
We scored a corner table and sat next to some animated antique dealers talking about sideboards and dating in NY. A bottle of Bordeaux arrived, then a plate of snails shipwrecked in butter. T had steak au poivre, I went for their standard hunk, medium rare with shoestring fries. They arrived, one slice, first bite and I realised I was crying – over a steak? jeez – but when I’ve tried to imagine how something might feel for years and then the experience arrives I’m afraid it’s inevitable I’ll get a bit emotionally incontinent (two Manhattans down).
Ps. Mum & Dad – so sorry for that over-excited 3am text xx
Les Halles through a Manhattan
NY Times pic of The National
The National set at NYU
