The National, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review: Rock’s sad dads are finally one of the biggest bands in the world

“I am not The National,” says the band’s frontman, Matt Berninger, in the 2014 documentary Mistaken for Strangers. “The National belongs to everybody now.”

It’s a joke, and yet, increasingly, there’s a truth to it. The National have become the people’s band, playing in front of five-figure crowds like this one, even as their music becomes stranger and more impressionistic. Just a week ago, they surprise-released new album Laugh Track, a thoughtful, experimental postscript to April’s First Two Pages of Frankenstein.

Neither of those records makes for obvious arena fare and yet, here they were, opening their first show in Scotland since 2019 with the nervy, beautiful “Once Upon a Poolside”, a track that in its romance and tentative optimism catches the casual listener up on Berninger’s past few years, which have involved depression, anxiety, writer’s block and, at the end of it, some of the finest material of his professional life.

This show, though, was a career-spanning one. For a long time, The National were guilty of having a rigidity to their setlists, something driven in part by stage fright on Berninger’s part, who worried he’d forget the words if they were to reach back further into their catalogue. Sober now, he seems much happier reaching into the reserves, meaning that the crowd enjoyed the handsome likes of “The Geese of Beverly Road”, “Murder Me Rachael” and “Demons”, alongside more well-worn fare.

He said little to the crowd, leaving guitarist Bryce Dessner to work the audience: thanking them for coming, recalling past shows in Scotland and, affectingly, dedicating “Mistaken for Strangers” to the group’s close friend, Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, who died by suicide in 2018. Dessner and his brother, Aaron, who has become the pop producer de jour over the past couple of years through his work with Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran, remain The National’s beating heart.

They giddily exchanged solos on “Smoke Detector” and “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”, the latter of which opened with the kind of dramatic rolling drums that recall “Sympathy for the Devil”, a reminder that The National now belong on rock’s biggest stage.

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That’s the major takeaway – that this stately indie rock outfit, who’s stock in trade is subtle melancholy, are now one of the biggest bands in the world, connecting so deeply with their audience that they’re playing arenas to people sporting official tote bags that read “Sad Dads”.

That they’ve pulled it off without compromise – you could hear a pin drop during an epic “About Today” – feels like a bit of a miracle.

They seem to know it, too: Berninger, now out of his creative slump, roared through the encore as he waded through the crowd, and bassist Scott Devendorf grinned at his brother, Bryan, as he reminded us why he’s one of rock’s most dextrous drummers on a thrilling, extended “Space Invader”.

As they continue to subtly reinvent themselves, the group are drawing ever-bigger audiences. The National belong to everybody now.

Touring to 27 September