Thirty-seven months ago, Bat For Lashes played the AB, stopping by on her Two Suns tour (you can still find the review of that show here).
2012, November 29th, dreary and chilly Thursday in Brussels, she is back to present the songs from her new - and, let's not kid ourselves, generally mediocre - third album, The Haunted Man. Just like last time (when 'Daniel' was reigning the radiowaves), the show once again sold out.
Race Horses was the opening act for the European leg of her tour; I don't know the first thing about them and got inside the venue too late to check them out. Embarassingly, after touring the whole of Europe with the same opening act, Natascha still needed a pause to conjure up their band name when she thanked them during her concert. Somehow, I don't reckon Race Horse saw a lot of Ms. Khan throughout the tour.
Onwards to the main act: The stage setup was sober and minimalistic; the only decorative element were lanterns attached to the various instruments on the stage, illuminating individually or in sync throughout several songs of the set.
Natascha emerged onto the stage, donned in what looked like the black and white dress with the generous back cleavage she wore for the 'All your gold' video. Unfortunately, she no longer tours with Charlotte Hatherley and Sarah Jones. This time around, her band consists of a female cello player, a drummer with electronic drumkit, a synth player who also does the piano on most tracks, and a guitar player. Due to electronic drumkit, I think all of the drums were played live, but like last tour, most/all of the bass parts were on tape (what Khan's objection to live bass players is exactly, we may never know).
Natascha kicked off the set with the opening track of her last album, Lilies. An emotional track, the "Thank God I'm alive"-outburst couldn't make up for the fact that the song is overly long, a flaw somewhat common among the tracks on the new album. On the upside however, Khan's voice was crystal clear, hitting all the high notes powerfully and with audible ease. A lot of directions were given to the sound engineer (this would continue on throughout the set), and standing up while simultaneously trying to sing and hit stuff with drumsticks always looks a bit silly in my book.
What's a girl to do, her breakthrough hit from 2007, still sounds fresh, mysterious and a bit eerie. Glass, the opening track from her previous album, is Bat For Lashes at her best, although I prefer the song with the parlando intro ("I will rise now / And go about the city / In the streets / Broadways I seek / Him whom my soul loveth"), which was left out. After three songs, it's already clear that Natascha really only has one dance move up her sleeve: the shoulder shake (a slo-mo shimmy?) with the occasional interpretative arm wave.
Continuing with another 'Two Suns'-track and the first appearance of Khan at her piano, Travelling woman. Not a standout track in my book. Not unlike last time, Khan sticks to the obvious and obligatory lines when addressing the audience ("Good evening Brussels!", "Is everyone feeling okay?", "Hope you're enjoying the new songs!").
Followed by three songs of the new album in succession: Oh yeah, driven by the synths and samples doesn't score points with me, All your gold is a good radio single that - for reasons unknown - isn't a radio single here in Belgium. Horses of the sun has a good bridge and chorus, but attention caves in hopelessly during the first verse, we don't reach the first bridge until about 1:15 in.
Staying put in equestrian atmospheres and with Khan back on piano, Horse and I didn't fail to shake the -appreciative, civilized and silent - crowd up a little with the up-tempo melody.
Not the biggest fan of the Laura-track (doesn't come close to the emotional range of her other piano ballads), but it works well live, and garnered the biggest round of applause of the set. I was surprised to see she left piano duties to her synthesizer player on this song.
Having worked through her full-albums in preparation for the concert, I was caught by surprise when she played Lumen, which I guess is non-album track, driven by a naive synth riff.
Another winner from 'Fur and Gold', Natascha and her band invited the audience to clap along to Prescilla. I wouldn't categorize myself as a big instrument connaisseur, but I think Natascha was playing some kind of lire on this song.
Wall with the "When you see a wall / I see a door"-chorus, is another synth-driven song of the new album that fails to really enthuse me.
Finishing off the regular part of the set with two tracks of 'Two Suns': Sleep alone with Khan on castagnettes and Pearl's dream.
The band returned for an encore: The title track from the new album 'The Haunted Man' features a sample from a men's choir. This was translated on stage with Natascha holding an vintage radio close to her microphone, out of which the sound of men's choir was played louder and louder. In itself, that was a weird and dull moment, but the finale, with Khan holding the radio with arms outstretched over her head, proclaiming "Still I´m holding out my hand / Standing by my haunted man / Yes, your ghosts have got me too / But it´s me and you / I can´t run..." was one of the better moments of the set in my opinion. Daniel was the predictable closing track of the set. But still a good song, I won't snub at it.
Overall, I was really glad to see Bat For Lashes again, and vocally and sonically, the show left little to be desired. Khan is a solid performer and tries to radiate that's she's happy to be on stage, however, she's not the extravert performer that can genuinly engage a crowd (thinking Florence Welsh here). Reading back my review from three years ago, the setlist was so much better then ('The wizard'!, 'Siren Song'!, 'Tahiti'!, 'Moon and moon'!), it's hard not to feel slightly disappointed. Interestingly enough, she played almost everything from the new album except for my two favourite songs ('Winter fields' and 'Marilyn'). Crossing my fingers that she'll come up with a fourth full album that will blow me away.
Setlist:
- Lilies
- What's a girl to do
- Glass
- Travelling woman
- Oh yeah
- All your gold
- Horses of the sun
- Horse and I
- Laura
- Lumen
- Prescilla
- Wall
- Sleep alone
- Pearl's dream
Encore:
- The Haunted Man
- Daniel
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