It’s a magical feeling to finally see a performer you’ve been engaging with for so long, like at last meeting a pen pal you’ve been in correspondence with for ages. That’s how this writer felt getting to see Bat For Lashes on 2/17 at the Sinclair. Considering the singer-songwriter hasn’t performed in Boston since the September edition of Boston Calling (remember the days when BC was split into a semiannual affair?), this feeling of long-awaited fulfillment was most likely mutual for many of the attendees.
On a cold and windy winter night, Bat For Lashes – a.k.a. Natasha Khan, who has been performing under the BFL moniker since the release of her 2006 debut Fur and Gold – warmed the hearts and souls of her audience with an intimate set of stripped down material. Usually her music features full orchestration, but for this run of recent shows, she’s only been accompanied by one other musician, keyboardist Laura Groves. But don’t confuse “stripped down” for “acoustic;” the instrument sounds that Khan and Groves generated were as synth-heavy as any album version of these songs. This choice lended more focus to Khan’s voice while maintaining the ethereal, ’80s influence of her albums. BFL wasn’t shy about letting the audience know the influence of the decade on her music, sharing intimate memories of her Goonies-themed 9th birthday party and her affinity for the films of Stephen Spielberg.
Khan is drawn to narrative structure in her songwriting, and explained to the audience early on during the show why she chose to go stripped-down for the current tour. “I’ve been touring for such a long time with a large band, and this is an opportunity for me to tell more stories.” According to her, the concepts and imagery for many of her songs and albums come from ideas for films or novels that pop into her head. She based her 2016 album The Bride off a novella she wrote; she read an excerpt from this piece before playing the track “Joe’s Dream” from that album. When you close your eyes and listen to her performance, you can get flashes of these stories: of gothic romance; vulnerability and pain; lost love and heartbreak; and the evolving patterns of intimacy between two star-crossed souls.
The influence of the ’80s is especially prevalent on her most recent release, 2019’s Lost Girls, which was partly inspired by her travels in the western U.S. in recent years. The title of the album, as well as the second track “The Hunger,” find inspiration in Santa Cruz, CA. Khan informed the audience that she wanted to visit the coastal city because it was the filming location of the classic teen vampire flick The Lost Boys. The album’s title is a direct reference to this movie, and “The Hunger” is about a group of female vampires.
While her focus was on the new album, Bat For Lashes made sure to hit on something from each of her five releases, culminating in “Laura” from her 2012 The Haunted Man, one of her biggest hits to date, with which she closed her main set. She also made a point of paying homage to some of her influences. When she played “Feel For You” from Lost Girls, she explained how this track was difficult to convert to the stripped down format because the album version is so beat heavy. To facilitate this transition, she and keyboardist Groves combined the song with the legendary Chaka Khan’s similarly named “I Feel For You.”
Later on, Khan explained how the mixtapes her mother used to play had a profound impact on her interest in music, name dropping icons like Heart and Carly Simon before embarking on an exquisite cover of Don Henley’s hit “The Boys of Summer.” Someone needs to pass this cover along to the creators of Netflix’s Stranger Things, because if it’s not in the upcoming season four, then what is the point of having another season of that show? In the encore, Bat For Lashes closed with two more covers: “I Drove All Night” by Cyndi Lauper and “This Woman’s Work” by Kate Bush. The latter of these two was especially powerful; it’s one of the most beautiful songs in Bush’s exquisite catalog, and Bat For Lashes performed it with the utmost reverence and emotion impact. Introducing it, she detailed how important Bush’s music is to her, and how it always reminds her of her youth and home in England.
In many ways, Bat For Lashes is a spiritual successor to Kate Bush: a literate storyteller who is just out there enough to pull outsiders into the folds of pop music, but with enough beauty and catchy appeal to absolutely floor an audience with unparalleled emotional performance. But while similarities and influence abound, Bat For Lashes has undoubtedly come into her own as a songwriter and performer, now with over 14 years of material and touring under her belt. Hopefully, Boston won’t have to wait another 7 years to welcome her back. Check out our photo gallery from the show below.