Watch: The National debut new song “Light Years” at Homecoming Festival
The National headlined both nights of their own Homecoming Festival in Cincinnati this past weekend and the crowd was in for a double-whammy. In addition to gifting the audience with a rare full album performance of 2007’s classic 'Boxer', on Sunday evening the indie-rockers debuted a new song called 'Light Years' which has never been performed live to date.
As aptly pointed out by CoS, the performance featured 'a piano line reminiscent of something from The War on Drugs’ catalog. The track is a sobering and melancholy listen, made all the more impactful by the dramatic blue stage lighting.'
Check out fan-shot video of the moment below:
Taking to the stage and curating the full line-up in their native Cincinnati, other acts to perform across the weekend included Future Islands and Father John Misty.
On the opening night, The National performed fourth album ‘Boxer’ in its entirety, assisted by Ben Sloan, Jan St Werner and Lisa Hannigan. Then after a smattering of fan favorites spanning the rest of their career, the band returned to the stage for an encore that opened with brand new single ‘Light Years’. The band’s closing set on the second night saw a more traditional set, ending on their staple ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’ played unplugged and acoustic, inviting a mass crowd sing-along.
In a recent interview with NME, The National frontman Matt Berninger spoke about the progress on the band's next album. "We’ve been in the studio,” Berninger said. “We’ve been recording wherever we go. We had a bunch of stuff that we just recorded in Buenos Aires when we were in South America just because we had a day or so.We’ve been constantly just writing. Even before ‘Sleep Well Beast’ was done, there was already a bunch of stuff cooking, but when Trump won it just didn’t feel right for whatever reason. I can’t even tell you why. ‘Sleep Well Beast’ had the pivot when the world changed."
“We stayed in the kitchen. We don’t do that thing where we don’t talk to each other for months anymore. I don’t know what form or when this next album is going to come out, but we’ve been doing some other really interesting collaborations with people too. It’s all way more than halfway done.”
