The National Live — Stage Lighting and Beam Geometry

25 October 2017 · Amsterdam

Five musicians in silhouette against a grid of raking blue-white beams. The light is the architecture here — sixteen or more moving heads converging on the stage, projected circles drifting across the overhead panels, haze thickening the air between the rig and the floor. The band almost disappears into it, which is exactly the point. A wide-angle concert frame from The National's Sleep Well Beast tour at an Amsterdam venue, where the production design carried as much weight as the performance.