The Amp, in partnership with The Foundation and JaxLive, welcomes the return of Grammy award-winning indie group The National to The Amp on Monday, June 17, in the tour’s only Florida appearance this summer. Special guest opening act will be Courtney Barnett.
Recently, The National announced the upcoming release of their album “I Am Easy to Find,” due out May 17, along with opening track “You Had Your Soul with You,” featuring the vocals of longtime David Bowie collaborator Gail Ann Dorsey.” I Am Easy to Find” is the band’s eighth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s GRAMMY award-winning release “Sleep Well Beast.”
The National has established itself as mainstays of arenas and festivals with sold-out performances and headlining slots around the world. With the release of its most recent album, “Sleep Well Beast,” The National achieved its highest chart position in the U.S. to date, coming in at No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200. In addition, the band scored No. 1s in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal and Canada and its highest chart position ever in a total of 11 countries. The National also claimed its first No. 1 at commercial radio on the Triple-A radio chart with "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness." The songs off “Sleep Well Beast” are instantly recognizable as The National, but its sound has evolved and expanded.
“We didn’t feel like rushing it,” said Aaron Dessner, who produced “Sleep Well Beast.” “People thought the National went away, but we were just working on ideas.”
With members now living in five different cities, the band made an extra effort to get together in the same room – sometimes in studios in upstate New York or out in Los Angeles.
“We’ve always worked on demos together,” said guitarist Bryce Dessner. “But this time we were actually in the same physical space doing it.”
Both individually and collectively, The National’s members have been involved in countless artistic, charitable and socio-political pursuits. The group released “A Lot of Sorrow,” documenting their collaboration with installation artist Ragnar Kjartansson, which took place at MOMA’s PS1 and saw the band play their song “Sorrow” for six hours in front of a live audience. They are behind the red-hot benefit albums “Dark Was The Night” and “Day Of The Dead,” and the compilation boxed set titled 7-Inches for Planned Parenthood. Band members have received a Golden Globe Nomination for work on the score of the 2015 film “Revenant,” founded or played a major part in MusicNow, Eaux Claires and Haven Festival and Boston Calling, and participated heavily in both Obama presidential campaigns and much more. The National consists of Matt Berninger (vocals) fronting two pairs of brothers: Aaron (guitar, bass, piano) and Dessner (guitar, piano), and Scott (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums).
For the opening act, Barnett is one of the most distinctive and compelling voices in indie rock, a singer-songwriter who mixes deeply insightful observations with devastating self-assessment. With countless awards in her home of Australia, as well as Grammy and BRIT nominations, Barnett's rise to global prominence feels both unprecedented and important. Rolling Stone has praised her as "one of the sharpest, most original songwriters around — at any level, in any genre … a self-strafing humorist, a la Lena Dunham, who's also a Dylan-style word ninja."
The show time is 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.), with ticket prices ranging from $45-$65. Tickets are on sale at the The Amp and Ponte Vedra Concert Hall box offices. Tickets are also be available at ticketmaster.com or by phone at (800) 745-3000.
For more information, go to www.americanmary.com or visit www.theampsa.com.
