Back in July when the hype surrounding Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was perhaps at its peak, I posted some comments about The National and their unfortunate plight. Sure, The National are headlining a tour, but openers CYHSY are getting the majority of attention.

In that article, I linked to commentary from Deviated Septum, who wrote: "Knowing the hype would show no signs of abatement between now and September, I started to envision crowds streaming out of venues after Clap blows the roof off a packed bar, leaving The National with a sparse crowd. But you hope people are smarter than that." Based on a few reviews I've read of Wednesday's The National/CYHSY show at Warsaw in Brooklyn, Deviated Septum's fears have been realized. Witness:

"One band is the headliner; they've been around longer, and they have more records and a record deal with a respected indie, so they play last, and they play for longer, and the sound is somehow better..

The other band is the opener; they only have one album, and they put it out themselves, and they haven't been around for all that long, so they play earlier and for not as long...

Except somehow something happened, and some wires got crossed, and the opening band starts getting internet love, and all of a sudden they're getting press and filling venues by themselves. And then boom, they're more famous than the headlining band, but they're still opening. And so the crowd noticeably thins when they get done playing, and you end up just feeling kind of sorry for the poor headlining band [my emphasis added]."

The above paragraphs were written by Tom Breihan in the Village Voice. Here's more evidence:

"I was one of those people that left after their set and missed The National. Before you start throwing eggs or insults at me, I was way too early, way too drunk, and way too tired to stay out. That's all."

That's from Rachael at the Underrated Blog. Fair enough. Those are good reasons to leave early. I wonder what everyone else's excuses were?