On August 28th, The National surprised fans with a secret acoustic performance at Edinburgh’s Connect Festival in honour of Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison.The following message circulated – “Secret set added – 7.45 pm at the Tiny Changes x Gardeners Cottage.” And festival-goers soon found out that The National’s Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, and Bryce Dessner were going to perform and pay tribute to their late friend on the festival’s newest stage. You can watch the performance below.
The National, who had already headlined the festival, played two new songs for fans “This Isn’t Helping” and “About Today”, which they introduced by saying, “Whenever we play this one, we think of Scott,” before launching into the opening line, “Today…You were far away…and I… Didn’t ask you why”.
The festival’s Tiny Changes x Gardeners Cottage was set up in collaboration with Tiny Changes, a charity that supports young people’s mental health and was founded in Hutchison’s honour after his suicide in 2018. Scott had performed on a similar stage at the original Connect Festival in 2006. Tiny Changes is Scotland’s first charity that supports young people with mental health problems and raised over £4,500 over the festival weekend.
The National’s Aaron Dessner told those in attendance, “Thank you so much, it’s a pleasure to support Tiny Changes. Scott was a really close friend of ours, and like you guys, we were huge fans of Frightened Rabbit. We were devastated when he left. This charity is amazing, and any awareness we can raise for mental health, we want to do that because we all struggle with it.”
NME reported Tiny Changes Kara Brown, CEO of Tiny Changes, feelings, “Connect Festival – a similar stage to one Scott played at back in 2006 – is something we will remember forever and the perfect ending to an incredible weekend of live music, helping young minds feel better.”
DF CEO Geoff Ellis added, “Grant from Frightened Rabbit asking The National if they’d do a secret set at our Tiny Changes Gardeners Cottage is what Connect Festival is all about – a totally unique experience and an appreciation of friendship and connections.”
The National recently headlined London’s All Points East Festival performing their new single “Weird Goodbyes” with Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold. The band have been performing the song since last May, playing it for the first time on May 28th in Pamplona, Spain. “Weird Goodbyes” features Bon Iver and was released on August 22nd, and is available on all platforms.
Our new single “Weird Goodbyes” featuring @boniver is out now on all platforms. We hope you love it as much as we do.https://t.co/38DadlvMEX pic.twitter.com/MBOlHgpGzC
— The National (@TheNational) August 22, 2022
In a statement for the song reported by NME, Berninger said, “It’s about letting go of the past and moving on, then later being overwhelmed by second thoughts.” Dessner added, “‘Weird Goodbyes’ was one of the first new songs we made. I was misusing drum machines, as usual, and stumbled onto this beat that got stuck in my head – it felt like something only Bryan could naturally play. We built the song around the beat. Matt’s melody and words felt so elegant and moving from the beginning – mourning a loss of innocence and motivation, holding onto memories and feelings that inevitably slip away and the grief we all suffer in weird goodbyes.”
