The National bring the heat as daylight fades

Sunset brought long lines for the food concessionaires Friday at Coachella, and a little brain food to the Outdoor Theatre. The National, whose bookish, meditative indie noir is tailor-made for for late nights in clubs and solitary rides home, ramped their set up considerably for scantily-clad throng still baking from the afternoon sun.

Teenagers in bikinis, dancing to "Mistaken for Strangers?" There was no mistaking.

The Cincinnati-bred quintet, now based in in Brooklyn, fortified their sound with a couple of horn players, and if the ground shook a little bit by the time singer Matt Berninger and mates coursed through the anthemic "Abel," you got the idea it wasn't just the volume, it was the band's conceptual weight.

It's pretty much a triumph these days -- and possibly in some corners of this festival -- when a band has an idea. It's downright remarkable when it has an oeuvre.

Post, photo by Kevin Bronson