The National @ Royal Festival Hall, London

It’s the silence that you notice first. While the cavernous and ever-so-slightly-austere Royal Festival Hall’s traditional clientele isn’t your typical sticky floored 02 Academy regulars, it’s still disconcerting to go to a concert where nobody talks or even moves during the headline act’s first eight songs.

But such is the esteem that Brooklynites The National are held in by this sold-out crowd that it takes a lone voice, shouted from somewhere in the stalls, to break the spell and remind people that this is, you know, a concert and stuff. “Tell everyone to stand up!” he cries. The audience obey, to a man. And then the fun really starts.

The National MP3s or CDs

The National on Spotify