Festival Review: Bat for Lashes - Meltdown Festival, Southbank Centre - London 16/06/2023
Christine and the Queen’s Meltdown Festival continues as Bat For Lashes take to London’s iconic Southbank Centre.
The Southbank Center hosting Christine and the Queen’s Meltdown festival has been a blast so far featuring some incredible music. We sat in a beautiful concert hall awaiting the first act to come on stage. The audience is expectant and has arrived early with the whole room almost at capacity.
Avalon Emerson and The Charm are on first, hailing from Arizona in the US, they ease us in with their simmering vocals and 80’s synths.
Avalon Emerson and The Charm with soft ethereal vocals and a beat that feels like that moment in an Indie movie but all the time. With the green and blue spotlights, they take us by the hand into their synth-pop dream world filled with beautiful big bass sounds and reverb for the gods. We are sitting in one of the beautiful concert halls here in the Southbank centre and the synths wash over everyone in the audience.
By the second song, the bass was thumping, it feels like I’m in a European club sipping on a cold beer. The band are so confident and happy up there with lead front person Avalon Emerson dancing not dissimilar to David Bowie.
“Astrology Poisoning” was a favourite of mine from their set, filled with electric double bass. I was happy to be with them for this musical journey they had laid before all of us. The summery guitar on such a summery day really led me into a journey of introspection and joy while listening to and watching them.
I felt like I was walking through a meadow, the music is romantic, tense and foreboding. The strings rising behind in a crescendo of magic while the electric double bass and the vocals are a perfect mix, it was really great. The band themselves are having a great time on stage and smile while they are performing to each other
They were so grateful to be part of this festival and thanked Christine and the Queen’s for picking them and thanking London and the audience for being there to catch them so early.
In the interlude before Bat for Lashes the stage is getting set up. A Steinway grand piano, a giant mirror in the middle of the stage, beautiful see-through snare drums dotted around the stage, fake rocks and a violin set up. Safe to say, I am excited about what this show is going to entail. Bat for Lashes hasn’t performed in a few years as she concentrated on having her daughter and spending time together.
The lights go dark. Everyone is in their seats, careful not to miss one moment.
Bat for Lashes walks out confidently, she looks phenomenal. Dressed in an all-white outfit, filled with flowers, and beautiful seams and topped off with a cape made out of
Toole. She starts singing with delicate hand movements, these first songs she sings are from her unreleased, “The Dream of Delphini”. These songs are all about the journey of having her daughter and motherhood.
She sings so earnestly, her fingers and arms dancing around her body accentuating each lyric while feeling like she’s in a thunderstorm. I found myself close to tears while watching her, the storytelling leading me right where she wants me to be.
Bat for Lashes welcomes us all into her world, thanking everyone for showing up and supporting her for all this time. She plays, “The Hunger” next, a song about conflict about wanting to be with a particular person with a favourite line, “It fills up the sky”. She’s moving like a lion, her movements distinct. Bat for Lashes is joined by her violin accompionants now who is also darned in a tulle cape, a beautiful theme linking them together.
For her next song “Mountain”, Bat for Lashes starts on the floor, a song about finding it difficult to reach someone. She slowly gets up and sings to herself in the mirror, a spotlight lighting the way, as the chorus starts to build she walks over to a drum facing the audience and by now the synth is loud and vibrational. She bangs the drum with intention while singing the chorus out, “I couldn’t see which way to turn”. The drum flashes white with every hit. This song is powerful, and she ends the song back at the mirror, bearing her soul with a round of applause from the audience.
Bat for Lashes is captivating, and striking and everybody here is amazed by her immaculate voice and gift for storytelling. She moves into “Desert Man” now, a song about loving someone who doesn’t have a sense of home. Her nails are glowing in the dark as sings, this whole show is true art.
After she sings, she is funny and talks about wearing a body sock as she walks over to the piano. She lets out a wolf howl and the audience giggles and begins to answer back in wolf howls, before we know it the whole concert hall is reverberating with wolf howls and little giggles. Bat for Lashes starts singing, “Horse and I” with a powerful line “You’re the chosen one”. She is singing so passionately, every syllable filled with emotion and love. The drums are like a heartbeat and the spotlights going over the audience makes me feel like we’re the chosen one. As she moves to the Steinway grand piano she sings an astonishing cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colours”, the audience joining in quietly so we can all take in her immaculate vocals. She has a rainbow light behind her lighting up her cape and her body while she plays, a beautiful visual representation of the track.
During her performance, I feel like I’d been invited into a fairy realm where we can all participate and have a great time. This performance is artistic and meditative. We are all so drawn to Bat for Lashes and the energy is put across the stage and into our seats. She is so lost in her music as she sings, it is inspiring to watch this world-class performance.
A highlight for me was when she stood on top of these rocks on the stage with a spotlight on her. Felt like an angelic realm where her soul lives and she let us in softly and assertively. I feel grateful to have had the chance to see this show Bat for Lashes put together. She talks about how nervous she was and thankful for everyone that has helped her put it together.
Standing ovation. Standing ovation, the audience on their feet, amazing, happy, crying and thankful for Bat for Lashes for her music and this artistic show.
As the finale for the Meltdown festival draws near, we have Christine and the Queen’s headline show on Sunday evening! One not to miss!
Words by Hannah Kane
Photos by Victor Frankowski
