The National Parks (September)
- By M@ggie
- June 22, 2020
- No Comments
So my work buddy Joe and I were feeling old (even though he’s like 15 years younger than me, so take that as you will) and decided we needed to find a concert to go to. A band he likes, The National Parks, were playing at the Songbyrd near GWU, so we decided to get tickets!
We went early enough to grab dinner at the bar above the venue beforehand, and had a ton of time to spare.
The opening band was called Wild:
As an old, I was a little fascinated by the lead singer, who was wearing a huge heavy 80s-style jacket (it was really warm weather). Kids and their stagewear.
Next, the National Parks. I’m pretty new to them as a band, though I listened to some of their music on YouTube before the show. I was really impressed with the fiddle playing, and correctly detected some chemistry between her and the lead male singer, as it turns out they are married.
The other cool thing was the two women in the band doing some drumming together. I wish I had gotten a longer video, but here is a sample.
Click through!
At one point they did the unplugged thing where they came out into the audience, and just happened to be literally right in front of me, which was cool.
You Are Gold:
And then the second song. His little intro to it really hit me the wrong way. He keyed on a phrase that I hate, which is about having faith that everything is going to work out. I think it’s an easy position to take when you are young, white, and have never been really tested. Things don’t always work out. Bad stuff happens to good people. Maybe, as MLK says, the arc of the moral universe might bend toward justice, but it can certainly be long. Like, I guess things worked out ok in the end, looking back on WWII. But like 50-75 million people died as a result. To me, it’s about doing your best when you are dealt a sh*tty hand, but things don’t always work out. Maybe it’s the context of the times too, that made this hit be hard. But it just seemed like when you privileged enough to be playing life on the easiest setting, things often do work out for you. But you can’t assume it works that way for everyone. [haha, and I wrote this pre-pandemic.]
So anyway, music:
