The Bats | Cake Shop | 3.13.2006

Nice in-store performance by one of the great Flying Nun bands, The Bats, at Cake Shop early Monday evening. Here’s a group — the same lineup for 22 years! — whose gentle sensibilities work perfectly in the "acoustic" format, though guitarist Kaye Woodward was plugged in, as it should be. There were maybe 30 people there to see them, touring the US for the first time since Couchmaster came out ten years ago. I hadn’t seen them play since the 1992 Noisyland Tour that also featured Straightjacket Fits and the Jean Paul Sartre Experience.

The Bat’s new album, At the National Grid, picks up right where they left off a decade ago, with Woodward’s lead guitar snaking around singer Robert Scott‘s strumming, the melodic bass-lines of Paul Kean and rock-steady drumming of Malcolm Grant. The 40-minute set feature a number of songs from Grid, as well as old favorites like "Bogeyman," "Nine Days," "Land ‘O’ Lakes" and one of my favorites, "Smoking Her Wings." Though still a little jet-lagged, the band sounded great.

After the show the band was selling copies of their tour-only CD, Raw Eggs. Only 40 copies were made, each with a unique, hand-painted cover by Scott. I got #12.

The Bats play the Knitting Factory on Wednesday, March 15 along with fellow Kiwis Mad Scene (featuring Hamish Kilgour who was in The Clean with Scott). Here’s a few MP3s:

• The Bats – "Don’t You Rise"
(From Raw Eggs – previously unreleased)

• The Bats – "Never Said Goodbye" (From 1988’s The Law of Things)

Remaining March US tour dates:

17th – 1pm, End of an Ear in-store | Austin, TX
17th – 6pm, Ms Bea’s FREE patio party on the Rambler stage | Austin, TX
18th – Halle Cabana w/ Tullycraft, The Owls, Galactic Heroes
22nd – 6pm Instore at Amoeba, San Francisco
22nd – Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco w/ Guillemots, Dear Nora
23rd – Starry Plough – San Francisco – Bel Hevis (possibly Minisnap too)
24th – Los Angeles – TBC

A couple more pictures after the jump…