Bat For Lashes at EartH

Bat For Lashes

EartH, 26 November 2019

There is something so elegant, ethereal and English about Natasha Khan, aka Bat For Lashes, that it's actually hard to imagine her living anywhere else but England. She seems to belong to the world of folk and fantasy that you can't find in any other place in the world. Yet, like Laura Marling, Khan has left us behind for California and her latest album, although full of 80s nostalgia, was inspired by some pretty American themes.

Lost Girls, she tells us tonight, was very much inspired by the 1987 vampire flick The Lost Boys after a visit to Santa Cruz Broadwalk and seeing the famous Ferris wheel and roller-coaster silhouetted again the sky. It planted the seed for a story about a gang of female vampires, originally intended as a movie, but eventually becoming a concept album, which, let's be fair, is something that Khan is pretty much an expert at. The record itself is something of a homage to the 80s pop sounds Khan grew up with yet the shows she is doing in support are stripped down affairs, with Khan just accompanied by a keyboard player on the songs ("I made an album with lots of drums and then decided to do a tour with no drums!").

I had never actually been to the venue before, EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney apparently), an old cinema, the Savoy, converted to an arts space but was pleased to see it was seated (especially important for intimate performances such as these) although I was pleased to get a proper chair at the front rather than further back where people had to sit on wide steps instead. Sadly, even though I was close to the stage none of my photos turned out very well but the low lighting and flickering lanterns on the stage set a rather lovely mood.

It was also rather nice to have no support act, with the show starting promptly at 8pm, Khan emerging looking like she was dressed as a far more chic version of Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice (she also wore a long red dress for The Bride tour but the ruffled red lace she wore tonight had to be inspired by Winona Ryder's wedding dress in that movie). Anyway, she looked incredible and the blood red she was wearing fit nicely into the vampire theme.

The first half of the show is entirely dedicated to the new record but the songs are given an entirely different sound by this stripped down approach, and it actually gives them even more depth and made me appreciate the album in a new way. Starting with Kids In The Dark, her vampire girl gang theme, she tells us The Hunger was inspired by her favourite movie, the aforementioned Lost Boys, Desert Man came after a trip to Death Valley to the Amargosa Opera House, owned by dancer Marta Beckett, The eccentric ballerina painted an audience onto the walls and performed ballets for her non-existent audience, proving an inspiration to another self-confessed outside, Khan herself.

She beautifully combines her new song Feel For You with the Chaka Khan (no relation!) classic I Feel For You, telling us it was a favourite with her and her siblings growing up. All these songs are given a much more haunting, mystical feel with just a synth backing, giving centre stage to Khan's crystal clear voice.  

She finally breaks from the world of Lost Girls, returning to her previous album, The Bride, which she tells us also started as an idea for a film, but in this case she actually wrote entire story for it and, before playing Joe's Dream, she reads a piece from the story which atmospherically brings us into the tale of a bride whose husband-to-be dies on his way to their wedding.

There's more spoken word later too, when she tells us how she found an old poem, written during the early days of Bat For Lashes, that reveals her obsession with alien abductions and the concept of lost time ("something that has run through my life from ET to Ziggy Stardust!"), fittingly following it with the song Close Encounters magically played on the auto harp. 

There are some incredible covers too, all from that era of "80s synths that I love," she tells us. The first came from listening to an 80s radio station in Los Angeles and the memories of the power ballads that used to make her cry as a kid, she even breaks into the song "Glory Of Love" and telling us how her 12 year old self got all emotional over breakup songs "I hadn't even had a relationship yet!" she laughs. She then gives us an incredible version of Don Henley's Boys Of Summer with Khan on synth herself and perfectly capturing the yearning feeling of the song. 

Later she tells us how the next song is by someone who she can't even describe how much she has meant to her and inspired her before launching into an absolutely spine-tingling and superbly sung rendition of Kate Bush's This Woman's Work. It's so utterly moving, the audience is on their feet by the end, giving Khan a much deserved standing ovation. I'm sure Kate would be proud.

At the very end she dedicates a song to her cousin who is in the audience tonight with her family, who she said introduced her to the album True Colors. I thought she might play the title track, which is a great track but has been covered so many times, but instead she sings a glorious I Drove All Night, a song I owned the 7" record of a kid and played so many times, so what a treat to hear Khan sing it in such a wonderful way.

She says how nervous she is about this show because, not only are her family here, but she considers London her hometown. She performs so well and chats so easily in between songs that it's crazy to think she gets nervous, only when she starts playing Moon And Moon alone on the keyboard that she has a slight blip and says she fears her fingers won't work and she'll forget how to play it, yet the version that follows is utterly breathtakingly lovely.

Bat For Lashes latest record may be steeped in American influences but coming back to England and walking in the English countryside, Khan admits, has made her realise how much England is marinated in her work and her entire being. As if to prove this she then tells a story about how she went on a trip across Dartmoor with a Professor of Mythology, "It gets weirder," she laughs, who was dressed in a top hat and cape and together they paid tribute to a rowan tree. All this inspired the song Land's End, which was played by Khan on guitar and with its folky feel, did indeed showcase how much of England is in her work.

This mesmerising and captivating show just proves how special Khan and Bat For Lashes is and, although these shows were sell-outs, she really deserves to be celebrated more in her home country because what a treasure she is.