Matt Berninger + Hannah Georgas @ Beanfield Theatre▪

After a relatively quiet start to my gig year, this weekend explodes into life. Hanorah Friday night, Gary Numan Monday night, and sandwiched in between is the mighty Matt Berninger, on a rare solo tour away from his day job as frontman of The National.

Canadian singer-songwriter Hannah Georgas is tasked with opening the show, and sets the tone perfectly. Her mellow vocal is reminiscent of Portishead’s Beth Gibbons or The Blow’s Khaela Maricich (niche reference there, ahem). Hannah is an engaging multi-instrumentalist, on keys for the first song, switching to an acoustic guitar on Scratch in parallel with a metronomic drum machine, and sometimes on vocal duty alone.

Matt comes out to sing their duet Pray It Away, from Hannah’s 2020 All That Emotion record, introducing it humorously: “We wrote this during the Pandemic… well, Hannah wrote it!” The 40-minute set closes out with the stellar Elephant, a deep distorted electronic beat under dim red light that could easily have come from a Portishead record. Unreal; I have been listening to that song ever since.

Then it’s time for Matt to take centre stage. His unique deadpan vocal translates perfectly from recorded format to the live setting, and in tandem with his 4-piece band (at least 2 of which look like University professors), delivers an hour and 40 minutes of sultry, mellow indie that sounds a lot like, well, The National. To the untrained ear, it’s hard to really hear much difference between the sound of his solo work and the sound of his regular band!

Matt has a great sense of humour too, making jokes throughout the set. After Frozen Oranges and its concluding vocal of “It’s Saturday, it’s Saturday,” Matt exclaims, “Hey, it IS Saturday!” The room roars in approval. After a storming harmonica solo on Distant Axis, he laments “I got a mustache hair stuck in it!” He introduces Terrible Love with a surfer dude voice: “THIS IS A NATIONAL SONG; BEST BAND EVER DUDE!” Only 2 National songs are played in the set, surprisingly, the other being the majestic Light Years, on which Hannah Georgas guest stars.

In fact, there is more unreleased new music played in the set than there are National songs; Matt pronounces after the conclusion of Silver Springs, “We’re going to do 3 new songs, this is our rock block!” Invisible Jerk is thunderous, Ask for Water is somehow even heavier, with vocal support from keyboardist Julia Laws. Martini Me Fatso is another upbeat rock number reminiscent of early National days and concludes with Matt handing his harmonica to a young girl at the fence, who beams from ear to ear.

Nowhere Special is brilliant tonight, its frantic spoken-word section sounding almost like a rap, while Bonnet of Pins sees Matt hop the fence and roam all the way to the back of the floor section while singing the vocal. After a storming cover of New Order’s Blue Monday, the show wraps up with Inland Ocean, and Hannah and her band joining to beef up the sound for a triumphant conclusion. A wonderful show from start to finish.