Caught Live: The National + Phosphorescent @ The Olympia Theatre, Dublin

With temperatures plummeting towards ten below-freezing and a blizzard engulfing the city centre, there are shades of ‘March of The Penguins’ about this evening's journey to The Olympia. All day there have been rumours circulating vis-a-vis the likelihood of the two Brooklyn-based bands making it across The Irish Sea. London Gatwick had been forced to close, we were told. At least Dublin Airport had reopened, though… before being shut down again around lunchtime. Thankfully, promoters MCD were on hand to tweet reassurances that both The National and Phosphorescent had indeed made landfall, enabling this first date in the pair’s three-night stand at the Dame St. venue to go ahead.

Of course, The National know all about arduous journeys. It’s taken Matt Berninger and co. five albums and a rigorous touring ethic to achieve mega-selling status, and the growing adulation (not to mention Presidential approval) that’s greeted their last couple of LPs feels like just reward for a solid decade of hard graft if nothing else. Luckily, though, there’s plenty more to recommend this band: May’s High Violet is the sound of a low-key band finally stepping out of the shadows and embracing the limelight.

Sliding in off the frozen streets, we arrive with just enough time to grab a hot whiskey at the bar before Phosphorescent takes to the stage. It’s been a funny old year for Matt Houck and his band: Here's To Taking It Easy has become their most commercially successful album to date, but this high-water mark was temporarily tainted in May by the theft of the band's touring equipment - gear, merch, van, the lot - all of which was thankfully later recovered. It’s perhaps a cruel irony, then, that it should be this salvaged equipment that lets the band down tonight. Admittedly, Ragged Words is not exactly standing front and centre for their set, but the mix sounds decidedly soupy to our ears; Houck’s vocals, in particular, seem barely audible at times. It’s an obvious hindrance to the band’s lonesome, wandering songs, only a handful of which manage to fully take flight this evening. All in all, a missed opportunity that rather passes a chatty crowd by.

There are no such problems making out Matt Berninger's distinctive baritone on 'Runaway'; arguably High Violet's most naked track, it's a bit of a surprise choice for set-opener, but it's a move that serves to underline the band's new-found self-confidence. And confidence is what's certainly needed to pull off these songs live. There aren't many bands who wear their fears and imperfections as prominently as these guys; where others opt for coy metaphor or oblique doom-mongering, Berninger's lyrics go straight for the jugular, as if he is attempting to somehow mainline his own insecurity. All of which renders the band's ability to transform blunt verses of despair (viz. 'Conversation 16''s "You'd never believe the shitty thoughts I think...") into hands-in-the-air singalongs all the more remarkable. For a few hours tonight a couple of thousand strangers feel like potential best friends, the band's stately angst reminding us all that life can be tough sometimes.

And that's all we can really ask of music sometimes - that it should bring us each that bit closer, however briefly, to people like us. An a capella final encore of 'Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks' threatens to keep everyone united in bellowing chorus after bellowing chorus all night long, until the band eventually departs just before my voice packs in altogether. Arcade Fire are also due in town this weekend to play The O2 - it surely can't be long now before The National, too, are filling arenas rather than theatres. Not bad for a quiet bunch of lads from Ohio.

Chief RW photog Mark Earley also braved the elements to make it along to The Olympia on Thursday night. To view a selection of his rather awesome shots of both bands, go here.