The National Play Three-Minute Song For Six Hours Straight
Rock band The National made a special appearance at New York’s Museum of Modern Art Sunday for a concert with an unusual twist: It was six hours long and featured only one song.
As dry ice swirled around the stage, the indie miserablists from Ohio played their song ‘Sorrow’ a total of 105 times in rapid succession.
The original track, taken from 2010’s High Violet album, usually lasts just over three minutes.
The band were there to collaborate with Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, whose work was accurately titled “A Lot of Sorrow.” Says the museum:
“By stretching a single pop song into a day-long tour de force the artist continues his explorations into the potential of repetitive performance to produce sculptural presence within sound.”
Meanwhile,Pitchfork writes:
“Fan reports suggest the band played it pretty straight for the most part, though one clip below shows drummer Bryan Devendorf sitting out a rendition. Again: six hours.”
Pssh, idle. Anyway, various videos of the marathon performance have appeared on YouTube, though no brave soul has managed to capture all six hours. You can watch a very small part of said concert below. Oh, and of course there’s this setlist:
