waiting for The National

Last week, I went to see The National at Brixton Academy. Twice. Both shows were great (Monday just shaded it) and the band resurrected a rarely played classic ‘Lit Up’ (one of my all-time favourite National songs) on both nights which was an unexpected and brilliant bonus.

I’d been eagerly waiting for these dates to come around since I saw the band on election night back in May at the Royal Albert Hall.

This beautiful photo taken by Alison Philcock brilliantly captures the mood and sense of expectation shortly before the band took the stage.

My family were genuinely perplexed as to why a grown man was going to see the same band play twice within three days and were unimpressed with my reply of ‘Well, I couldn’t get tickets for Tuesday'.

I also won a £10 bet with Norma who bizarrely insisted that the band would play the same set in precisely the same order. On Wednesday, two of my favourite songs ‘All The Wine’ and ‘About Today’ replaced ‘Runaway’ and ‘Little Faith'.