Matt Berninger: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

Matt Berninger
Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
3rd April 2025

The National’s frontman makes his long-awaited solo debut with two intimate shows in Leeds.

This is, quite incredibly, only Matt Berninger’s second solo show proper; the first was last night, at this same venue. As frontman for one of the world’s biggest and most revered indie rock bands, he is used to bigger and grander surroundings; a quick glance over the band’s European tour itinerary from last summer shows them playing numerous venues that border in the palatial. And yet, this working men’s club on the outskirts of Leeds feels a strangely fitting place for him to finally emerge as a solo artist in front of an audience. He certainly thinks so, repeatedly referring to the Brudenell as “church”, and imploring the sell-out crowd to look after it.

Berninger’s second solo album, Get Sunk, is still nearly two months away, with a late May release in the diary. His first, Serpentine Prison – the pronunciation of which is the subject of a running joke tonight – came out in the thick of the pandemic, meaning he played just one closed-doors show for it at the Sundance Film Festival.

Accordingly, the set couldn’t feel fresher, drawn as it is largely from the unreleased Get Sunk and the previously unaired Serpentine Prison. At an onstage Q&A with BBC 6 Music’s Chris Hawkins earlier in the day, Berninger talked through his writing process, and the upshot is that both of his solo albums involved wide collaboration. Two of his closest co-conspirators on Get Sunk join him onstage tonight for a pared-back set, Sean O’Brien on guitar and Julia Laws, who opened the show as Ronboy, on keys. This brings a sense of cohesion to proceedings, even across some pretty varied material. From the new record, woozy opener Inland Ocean might be the highlight, with Laws and O’Brien’s soft backing vocals standing in for the choir that complements Berninger on record.

In recent years, National records have often been dense, complex affairs but there’s an airiness to the Get Sunk material that allows us to appreciate a different side of Berninger; there’s an elegant, delicate Frozen Oranges, duets with Laws on Silver Jeep and the playful Breaking Into Acting, and in the form of early single Bonnet of Pins, a hook-driven low-key anthem.

To begin with, there are quiet signs that he’s still adjusting to small stages; he often looks unsure whether to stand or to take a seat alongside his band and where he uses a modern teleprompter at National shows, tonight he reads lyrics from printed sheets on a music stand. By the back half of the set, though, he’s acclimatised – so much so that on Get Sunk highlight Little by Little, he goes into full National stage prowling mode – which results in him hitting his head on the speaker stack.

Of course, a newly-minted solo artist would not be playing two sold-out shows of new material unless fans knew them from somewhere else, and the spectre of The National lurks tonight (even if one new track is a rework of a song by his very first band, Nancy). He acknowledges this with a rare outing for Daughters of the Soho Riots, from The National’s third record. It’s a treat for the diehards who were willing to show up sight unseen for the new album, but what they really came for tonight was Berninger and his voice – in the sense of both his wit and his dulcet tones. They got that in spades.

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Matt Berninger can be found at his website | Facebook | Instagram

Words by Joe Goggins: find him on X here.

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