Concert of the Month: Bat for Lashes

Last night (Thursday) I saw Bat for Lashes live. It was a really good concert!

You may have heard about Bat for Lashes from their awesome, creepy music video from 2007.

I got the album (Fur and Gold) after hearing that song and was mostly disappointed. The other songs just didn’t seem to have the depth and feel as that song. So then recently this year I heard Daniel on Last.fm.

Very cool song! Especially when you realize what it’s about!

Wes

Khan said in an interview with The Sun newspaper that Daniel was based on a fictional character that she fell in love with as a teenager.

she fell in love with daniel-san?

The Karate Kid! So then I got that album (Two Suns). It was better than the first one, but I still wasn’t feeling it.

Well, last night I convinced myself to see the show because the band makes such good music videos that the show could theoretically be really great. Well fortunately I was right, objectively speaking!

The whole band was spot on with sound. The main thing that I noticed was that the synth was weirder and the drums and bass were louder, giving them that sound I’d always hoped and dreamed for. I have a theory that when the band records, the label (presumably) turns up the sound on the singer’s voice, makes the synth mostly chill, and relegates the D&B to the background so that the music will be more palatable to the masses. I haven’t done any research at all on this, but I can say that their performance was great live, and their albums are mostly mediocre (to me).

My only complaint was that the concert was at The Loft, which is part of The Palladium. The Palladium has bad sound, is in a sketch part of town, and is just bad in general. Here are some examples comparing The Palladium to The Granada (my favorite venue of all time.)

  1. The Granada, while small, has multiple floor levels, so you never get stuck behind tall people. The Palladium is flat.
  2. The Granada has a bar, but it’s well partitioned from the concert area, so the annoying loud drunk people don’t spoil the show. The Palladium, not so much.
  3. The Granada has a dedicated photographer who will email (and post on flickr) any pictures he takes of the show. With the Palladium that’s not the case, so when you are trying to watch the show you see annoying people taking pictures instead of watching the show.

Overall though, I’d give the concert 4 stars; and it would be 5 if it weren’t at The Palladium.

Posted Sat, Aug 22, 2009

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