Watch The National Welcome Phoebe Bridgers in Philadelphia

September 28, 2018
Watch The National Welcome Phoebe Bridgers in Philadelphia

 

Before their two-day mini-festival in Queens this weekend, The National are playing some East Coast shows, including a Thursday-night stop at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, where the band welcomed special guest Phoebe Bridgers—who was one of the night’s openers—covered another opener, Cat Power, and brought back a tune they hadn’t played live in over nine years.

Just before Bridgers’ sit in, The National dusted off “So Far Around the Bend,” a song that the band contributed to the 2009 4AD benefit compilation album Dark Was the Night. The track hadn’t been included in the group’s setlist since that same year on 5/25/09. The National’s upcoming Queens festival, There’s No Leaving New York, also gets its name from a lyric in “Around the Bend.”

Next up in last night’s setlist was “Sorrow,” which featured Bridgers sharing lead vocals with The National’s Matt Berninger. Later in the night, the headliners opened their four-song encore with a cover of Cat Power’s “Maybe Not,” which Berninger introduced as one of the five songs he turns to when he is “in deep need of healing.”

Watch fan-shot video from last night’s performance below. The National play tonight at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, before moving to Queens’ Forest Hill Stadium for There’s No Leaving New York (which also features Bridgers, Cat Power and more) tomorrow and Sunday.