The National and the War on Drugs: Backstage at their New York Stadium Show

The sad dad convention — or the Zen Diagram Tour, co-headlined by the War on Drugs and the National, featuring special guests Lucius — gathered at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York, on an idyllic mid-September evening recently. The tour name was coined by the National’s singer Matt Berninger, a humble, self-aware nod at the fact that the Venn diagram of the two bands’ fanbases is pretty much just a circle. 

“The spirit of this tour is sort of just like, three great bands, night of music, end of the summer,” says Drugs frontman Adam Granduciel, chatting backstage before the sold-out show on a pair of porch rocking chairs. The National shared the same spirit that night back in New York, where the band originally formed in Brooklyn 25 years ago. “It’s fun to get back to home base from where the band started,” National bassist Scott Devendorf says. “It’s always like a big ‘This is your life’ moment.”

Earlier that day, The War on Drugs had just released their second live album, Live Drugs Again, a celebration of how their songs have taken on new lives over time. Both headliners have created extensive bodies of work that continue resonating with their hordes of devoted fans as the records age. “Each of the records is specifically about an era,” says Devendorf, reflecting on the National’s discography. “There’s that kind of reading-a-book-backwards thing sometimes.”

Photos by Sacha Lecca
Words by Leah Lu