As we previewed last week, Bat for Lashes played this past weekend at the Lucky Brand store on 3rd Street Promenade. The cool part was it was free, part of an ongoing series celebrating art-and-music-and-fashion called the “Neighborhood Social”. Obviously, Lucky’s doing their best to separate themselves from the Old Navy and Abercrombie & Fitch suburban drones set…probly a great idea. Hell it seemed to work — LIAS was there. Although it was free, only fans shrewd enough to RSVP and show up early got to experience what turned out to be a phenomenal gig. Sorry Waldo — if you showed up past 2 pm, you were shit outta luck!
The sun blasted everybody in the long line starting early at 1:00 p.m., and by the time opening DJ acts Jason Bentley and Jimmy Tamborello got the turntables going, everybody was wrist-banded, sunburnt, and revved for the long-awaited main act. After being entertained by 3rd Street’s usual cabal of sub-par street “artists” (please people, the world is not an open audition to American Idol — you will not be discovered on the Promenade!), those somewhat exhausted, albeit psyched fans crowded the store floor in anticipation for quieter renditions of Natasha Khan’s songs in an acoustic, stripped-down piano/synthesizer/harmonium/autoharp set of her best-loved numbers. Khan and her multi-instrumentalist bandmate (who also installed a display of hand-painted denim in the store window) kicked the show off at 5:30, and it was quite the intimate happening. A departure from her usual larger-than-life, epic performances, this more “quiet” set made the Bat for Lashes live show a much more unique experience.
The set was beautiful, and seemed to have the trajectory to last hours longer as the crowd sat mesmerized and silenced by Natasha’s voice. When the set came to a close with the leadoff single “Daniel” from her new album Two Suns, everyone still hung on for more. I guess the wait and the vitamin-D overload proved well worth it.
Bat for Lashes’ Set List:
Horse & I
Traveling Woman
Glass
Tahiti
Moon & Moon
Priscilla
Daniel
A couple more pics by Bryan Sheffield after the Jump…
