Photo credit: Kellen Nordstrom
Matt Berninger worked in advertising before he quit his job to start The National, and that corporate background might explain why he’s often treated the band as if it had a dress code. Even at sweltering July music festivals, he typically performs in vests, ties and blazers, usually dark ones. It seems telling, though, that Berninger has ditched that formal wardrobe while moonlighting with EL VY, his low-stakes side project with Menomena’s Brent Knopf, trading his usual office attire for white, untucked summer linens. If The National is his day job, this is his vacation.
EL VY released their debut album, Return to the Moon, last month, and it’d be alright if they never got around to recording another one. While it’s occasionally fun to hear Berninger cut loose, especially after several supremely melancholy albums with The National, Knopf’s eccentric keyboard arrangements don’t always make for the most flattering accompaniment. They’re so overstated they border on silly—which in theory might make them an interesting foil for Berninger’s regal croon, except they’re so manic that the two artists rarely settle into a groove for more than a few moments before some twist throws their chemistry off balance.
For the sold-out crowd at the Turner Hall Ballroom Friday night, though, it didn’t matter that Berninger was touring behind a mediocre record that’ll be mostly forgotten by the time The National gets around to releasing a follow-up to 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me. They came out just to see him, to bask in that golden voice and take in his charisma, and on those fronts he delivered. With a live rhythm section backing the duo, EL VY sounded less like a quirky studio experiment and more like, well, The National.
The group even fell back on some of the build-and-release dynamics of The National’s live show, though in general Berninger seemed looser than he is on stage with his other band, and he got louder as the set went on, increasingly breaking out the feral bark The National’s recent albums haven’t allowed much room for. With just an album of material to cover, the show ran less than an hour, including a shouty, extended cover of Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy” that let Berninger embrace his inner drunk karaoke singer. It was the kind of dumb, cheap fun that The National rarely allow themselves, and Berninger seemed to relish every moment of it.
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