The National Reveal Their Grá For Dublin's Fair City

It’s mandatory for musicians to make the city they’re in feel special – “As a boy growing up in Cincinnati I always dreamt of coming to Grimsby etc. etc.” – but the grá Matt Berninger has for Ireland couldn’t be any more genuine.
“We’ve had some amazing, amazing times in Dublin with The National,” he reflects. “Whelan’s, in particular, was one of the most important shows we’ve done as a band. I don’t know what it is; occasionally there’s an alchemy that comes together in a crazy magical way. Shows like that have set the bar for us. It’s almost like doing a drug where it’s so amazing you just keep chasing that high. Whereas you never quite reach that high again with drugs, we’ve figured out how to get to that place on quite a consistent basis. We know how lucky we are and love doing it!”
Their reason for visiting Whelan’s that November 2005 night was to promote Alligator, the album that officially confirmed them as indie darlings. Their upward career trajectory continued two years later with Boxer, and went vertical when 2010’s High Violet conquered the top 5 on both sides of the Atlantic.
Matt jokes that he knew they’d made it when “we got a text from Bono to come drink whiskey after we’d played the O2 in Dublin.”
Unfortunately, he was out for the count when his mobile pinged.
“I went to the after-show for a little bit, had one drink and then retired to the bus to phone my wife,” he rues. “I fell asleep and woke up several hours later to find that my cellphone had 15 messages on it. What emerged is that a text had come in to the promoter after I’d left summonsing us to a little bar where Bono and The Edge were waiting with a selection of fine Irish whiskies. The rest of the band got chauffeured there for a few hours while I was snoozing away. Apparently Bono gave Aaron a lot of advice, which he’s desperately trying to remember so that he can pass it on to me. U2, like REM and Springsteen, are one of those acts that always show their audiences total respect.”
Whisky – and lots of it! - was also involved when The National got to hang with the other members of that holy triumvirate.
“We drank with Bruce for a few hours, and got to hear a lot of the old E Street Band war stories, which was just awesome,” says multi-instrumentalist Aaron Dessner who, facts fans, has produced the new Lisa Hannigan album. “One of the bits of advice he gave us is that you’ve got to learn to play to the back-row. He also said, ‘You create a wave and then have to ride it. When I wrote Born To Run I had a million fans and when I wrote Born In The USA I had 10 million’. We joked that we had ten thousand including all our friends and family!
“What we learned from Michael is not to be afraid of writing an infectious song,” Aaron continues. “You don’t always have to subvert them into being something artier. ‘Don’t be afraid to write a pop song’ is I think how he put it when we stayed up all night drinking with him and Mike Mills at Oxegen. It’s a lesson he learned I guess when REM came out with ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Shiny Happy People’ and suddenly became one of the biggest bands on the planet. Some of the simpler songs on High Violet like ‘Sorrow’ and ‘Anyone’s Ghost’ were our response to that.”
Having learned from the best, expect fireworks – both real and metaphorical – when The National rake care of Sunday night headlining duties.

The National take to the Longitude Stage on Sunday.