Into The Music
The National have announced a 2026 North American tour in support of their 2023 album First Two Pages of Frankenstein, extending a touring cycle that has been one of the more sustained of their career. The dates include several outdoor amphitheater shows and a handful of arenas, with the band continuing to operate at a scale that would have seemed unlikely when they released Alligator in 2005.
First Two Pages of Frankenstein arrived as an unusually collaborative record for the band, featuring prominent contributions from Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens, and Phoebe Bridgers, among others. The collaborations were not marketing exercises; they were integral to the songs in ways that changed how the album functioned. The critical reception was warm and the commercial performance was the strongest of their career.
The National have spent two decades building from cult act to one of the more consistent presences in American rock, and the trajectory has been almost entirely dependent on the quality of the catalog rather than on any particular commercial strategy. Matt Berninger’s voice, one of the more distinctive in the genre, has aged in ways that have added to rather than diminished the emotional register of the live show.
The 2026 dates will draw on a catalog that now spans nine studio albums, which gives the band the rare luxury of being able to construct setlists that do not depend on playing the same songs every night. The fans who have been with them for twenty years and the newer listeners who arrived with First Two Pages will each find something in the shows that was made for them specifically.
The National touring behind First Two Pages of Frankenstein this long is actually fitting , the album has a literary patience to it that rewards multiple readings, if you’ll forgive the metaphor. Berninger’s lyrics operate the way a late Roth novel does: things recur, accumulate meaning, don’t explain themselves. An extended touring cycle lets the audience keep re-encountering those layers. Some albums only reveal themselves over time.
I’ll be honest , I’ve never fully warmed to The National. Something in Berninger’s baritone should appeal to me, the way a Bill Evans line should, but it always feels like it’s gesturing at depth more than finding it. That said, a band willing to stay on the road this long for a record that didn’t set the charts on fire? That’s integrity. I can respect the craft even when the music doesn’t quite reach me.
Terrence I hear you but I’d push back , Berninger’s baritone isn’t trying to do what Bill Evans does. It’s more like a man who’s been talking too long at a party and has decided to be honest about it. Different kind of late night energy.
I’ll say this for The National , they’ve always seemed like a band that genuinely wanted to play the songs rather than just promote the product. That distinction matters. The blues artists I grew up listening to played the same roadhouses for decades because the music demanded it, not because a label told them to. An extended touring cycle in 2026, when most acts are in and out in six months? Speaks to something. Whether the music itself has that kind of root, I couldn’t say.