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The phrase “here’s more good news” is not exactly happening a lot lately, so big thanks to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival for delivering some of just this: EFMF just announced The National as their Saturday headliner Aug. 6.
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Joining an already-exceptional lineup including the also-extremely-cool The War on Drugs (playing Friday night) and total legend Buffy Sainte-Marie, who will sing to the sky before Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats close up Thursday, Birds of Chicago’s Allison Russell also plays Saturday, with Lord Huron closing the festival Sunday. If this alone was the lineup, well, good enough.
The National’s singer Matt Berninger has an absolutely magically low-down woeful voice, and the slow-build indie rock band around him really turned everyone’s heads in 2007 with that brilliant album, Boxer. Off their 2010 album, High Violet, came the devastating line, “I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe,” on the harrowing Bloodbuzz Ohio.
The band still plays with its original lineup including the two sets of brothers: Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner and Scott Devendorf and Bryan Devendorf.
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Importantly, The National continues to produce great records, and if you’ve never seen Mistaken for Strangers, made, of course, by Beringer’s brother Tom, do yourself this favour.
“The National is a great addition to our lineup,” says festival producer Terry Wickham, “in what I believe will be our strongest folk fest lineup in years.”
The fest runs Aug. 4 – 7 at Gallagher Park, tickets and passes go on sale June 4, prices to be announced.