The National Live — Blue Stage Light and LED Panels, Amsterdam

25 October 2017 · Amsterdam

Three LED panels hang suspended above the stage, tilting at angles that feel architectural rather than decorative. Beneath them, The National's silhouettes hold their positions against a flood of deep blue — the band almost swallowed by the light production, and yet unmistakably the reason the room is full. Sleep Well Beast tour stage design treated the visuals as a second instrument: it plays between overwhelming scale and human smallness, and leaves both standing.