The Bats

Proving that last year’s first Australian tour in six years was no fluke, Kiwi legends The Bats made another successful pass, setting down in Melbourne over the ANZAC Day long weekend.

While the long-running Christchurch quartet remains very much an icon of the ’80s and ’90s Flying Nun roster, this was no nostalgia trip. The band’s set leaned noticeably on last year’s Mistletone-released The Guilty Office. They also debuted several new songs, which – given the enviably tight interplay between singer/guitarist Robert Scott (also of The Clean), guitarist/singer Kaye Woodward, bassist Paul Kean and drummer Malcolm Grant – were a cosy fit with selections from The Bats’ beloved back catalogue.

As a smoke machine billowed down on the first few rows of punters, The Bats opened with the short ‘Like Water In Your Hands’ from The Guilty Office. Then came the catchy and sinewy new entry ‘She’s Down’ and another Guilty Office offering in the romantic ‘Castle Lights’. Scott played acoustic guitar for these first three songs before switching to electric for the rest of the set. He also had to quickly change his amp after the quiet/loud dirge ‘Afternoon In Bed’, the opener of 1995’s Couchmaster. Alongside ‘Two Lines’ and ‘Crimson Enemy’ from The Guilty Office, the band tucked into a fast, plucky reading of the Go-Betweens’ ‘Right Here’, and a new song featuring a particularly loose chorus.

Addressing a constant stream of requests, Scott pointed to his head and confessed, “The hard drive only holds about 25 songs", yet the band played the opening track off both 1993’s Silverbeet (‘Courage’) and 1991’s Fear Of God (‘Boogie Man’). There was also ‘Flowers & Trees’ from 2005’s At The National Grid, the band’s return after a 10-year hiatus. The Bats are gorgeous on record but really come into their own live, topping a loping rhythm section with Woodward’s haunting guitar leads and Scott’s placid vocals and jangling rhythm guitar. When Kean advised people to dance at one point, it wasn’t a far-fetched idea: even the mellowest of Bats songs have a simmering urgency in the instrumentation that lends itself to bobbing heads and bodies.

The 17-song set behind them, it was only natural that The Bats should use their encore to revisit their two best-known songs: ‘Block Of Wood’ and ‘North By North’ from 1987’s Daddy’s Highway. The former was a treat and the latter felt intriguingly dark, complete with an untidy finish. This was the sound of The Bats in 2010, nearly 30 years after the band formed: snappy, nimble and confident.

by Doug Wallen