Fear of Clowns

August 7th: Bat for Lashes @ The Varsity

The first song of the first show of her American tour. My immediate and overpowering impression of the show was that it was a rather boring spot-on reproduction of her studio stuff - and indeed, the intention was obviously to reproduce the studio sound. It gets an A++ for that, double plus. Given her artiness, I'd expected to be surprised by an injection of something new into the live act. Further, that she's on a major label, I don't believe I'm going out on a limb by suggesting the suits have considerable influence over what I heard.

But after a day of reflection, I think the boring aspect mostly came from the fact it was a standing show instead of a sitting show, perhaps I would have been amazed at the faith to the album versions had I been close up in a chair at The State Theater. During a few songs, the band tried to get the audience to clap with passages, but it didn't result in any synergy. A caveat: She played against Passion Pit at another venue - so maybe

The boorishness of a group near me also put a damper on things. I almost came to fists with one of them as they tried to push ahead and once they decided there wasn't enough room for them "ahead" they pushed through again backwards. All those around us were irritated by their incessant announcements that they were really, really comfortable being gay by yelling "girlfriend" at girls and "bitch" at guys, whether the bitches were on or off stage. And they totally knew her name is Natasha Khan! THEY LOVE YOU NATASHA! Everyone else was happy with just listening as if they were seated. I'm embarrassed for their (polite) MPLS host who tried to explain, "They're from New York."

Between songs and more often than not, someone called out for them to play "Daniel." Ug.

Looking at this recording, I would have had a completely different reaction had it been at a more appropriate venue. I'll listen to her stuff differently now that I understand the perfection of the albums comes from pure musicianship instead of the opportunity to take the best of the best takes in the studio.

Mixed bag, the crowd and energy sucked, the musicianship was top-rate. Very glad I went.

// posted by Erik @ 8/08/2009 03:15:00 PM
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