The National performed a cover of Echo & The Bunnymen‘s ‘Bring On The Dancing Horses’ with The War On Drugs‘ Adam Granduciel during a performance in Toronto this weekend – check out footage below.
The National and The War On Drugs kicked off their co-headlining ‘Zen Diagram’ tour this month, which has so far seen them perform in cities across North America including New York, Columbia and Philadelphia.
On Friday night (September 20), the bands performed at Budweiser Stage in Toronto where The National treated fans to their cover of Echo & The Bunnymen’s 1985 track ‘Bring On The Dancing Horses’ with special guest Granduciel.
Check out fan shot footage of the performance below.
The National also performed favourites like ‘I Need My Girl’, ‘About Today’ and ‘Fake Empire’ throughout their set.
Over the coming weeks, the tour is due to hit cities including Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles before wrapping up in Mexico City. You can purchase any remaining tickets here.
While appearing at Glastonbury The National hinted to NME that they were in the “gardening phase” of writing new music.
“There’s a lot of music, so that means a lot of new music for us to play,” bassist Scott Devendorf shared. “We’ve really tried to mix up the setlist a lot and try to be more dynamic in that way just because it’s interesting for everyone.”
Asked if there was more to come, Matt Berninger replied: “No, we kind of purged ourselves. Once we started writing again, I wrote almost everything that was in the folders and made a song out of everything. Now the folders are filling up.
“I’ve been writing a lot, but I think we’re just gonna take it nice and slow. The garden is full of seeds. But we don’t know when it’s gonna start to bloom or anything like that. We’re in a very creative space – we’re in a gardening phase. Gardening at night!”
The early promise of new music comes after Matt Berninger spoke candidly to NME last year about his struggles with depression.
“I tried to reboot myself physically, mentally and everything. Everything burned down. My brain burned to the ashes and I had to slowly rebuild it up again somehow,” he explained, recalling trying to come back from a challenging time.
“It was sobering to realise how fragile I was. Looking back, I was sick as hell. It was a whole physical thing triggered by real things and mental things. It was a total emotional and physical paralysis. I’ve learned to just respect it and respect how fragile everyone is.”
The National’s last album, 2023’s ‘Laugh Track’, was awarded four stars by NME, describing it as a “heavier companion record” to April’s ‘First Two Pages of Frankenstein’