Matt Berninger Confirmed for the Heineken Stage on the Opening Day of NOS Alive’26

The frontman of The National will perform solo at Passeio Marítimo de Algés on July 9.

Renowned for his poetic writing, sharp wit, and intensely emotional melodies, Berninger has crafted one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music with The National. The band’s career spans ten studio albums, including First Two Pages of Frankenstein and Laugh Track (both released in 2023). In late 2024, The National released their first live album, Rome. Together with his wife, Carin Besser, Berninger produced the documentary Mistaken for Strangers (2013), directed by his brother Tom. Outside of the band, he founded the project EL VY in 2014 with Brent Knopf (Menomena), with whom he released Return to the Moon the following year. His acclaimed solo album Serpentine Prison (2020), produced by the legendary Booker T. Jones, will be followed by Get Sunk, scheduled for release in May 2025.

Alongside music, Berninger is also a visual artist. He spent a decade as a creative director in New York and continues to maintain a fluid connection with his work as a painter, sculptor, and songwriter. He often paints lyrics and song titles during his creative process, and before writing “Pink Rabbits,” he had already created a large canvas with a pink rabbit. His most recent artistic medium is baseballs, on which he writes poems and lyrics across the white leather and red stitching. His writing emerges from the same artistic impulse that drives his painting — fragmented, curious, and deeply human — in a porous space between artist, poet, and musician.

NOS Alive’26 will thus welcome, on the same day as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Matt Berninger’s performance on the Heineken Stage, on July 9.