Free concerts are the shit.  There, I said it.  Even though I’m not very familiar with the work of Grizzly Bear and The National, I had a great time at the concert.  I was all the way up front in the first row, leaning against the fence for the entire show.  I was so close that I could hear the instruments “live” rather than through the speaker system.  It was fantastic.

Grizzly Bear went first and played for almost an hour.  The one song of theirs I was familiar with, “Colorado” is apparently a rarity when they play live.  Today was certainly our lucky day - they played Colorado!  The drummer for Grizzly Bear was an interesting fella.  He did not have a bass drum but used all sorts of tricks to create a wide variety of sounds.  I could not take my eyes off his drum work.  Most of the band members are multi-instrumentalists so it was amazing to see them play several different instruments during the course of their set.

The National were crazy.  The lead singer was high on coffee and it really showed in his performance.  Again, some of the band members could play more than one instrument and they even had a trombone section!  It was a highly entertaining and energetic performance.  Being so close to the stage made it even sweeter as I got to observe the artists play their instruments.

All in all, for $0, this was a superb concert.  Anyone who says otherwise can suck it.  Also, FOUR in FOUR bitches!