The National Live — Sleep Well Beast Tour, Netherlands

25 October 2017 · Amsterdam

Stage lighting does most of the work here — three hard beam shafts cutting down through a dark indoor venue, the band underneath them small against the rig above. The National on the Sleep Well Beast tour: guitars forward, drums anchored at the back, the lead figure leaning into the microphone at centre-right. The light is architectural even when the subject isn't — narrow columns of white against a theatre ceiling that swallows everything else.