‘Cursed’ tour proves to be a blessing
A broken foot, a broken-down bus — nothing will keep Lights from doing what she loves
Lights busts out the “C-word” so quickly that I don’t even have to.
Get your minds out of the gutter: the word in question is “cursed.” Which, for the record, the Timmins-born, now Vancouver-based electro-pop Queen of the Geeksvolunteers in reference to her current “Baby I’m Back” road show well before this old pal and fellow lover of all things fantastical, frightening and generally falling beneath the “occult” banner has a chance to make the joke during a catch-up conversation.
“Some would call it ‘cursed,’ but it’s still been incredible,” said Lights, reflecting on a 26-date return to the touring trail that has thus far survived: a devastating long-distance farewell to her cat of 18 years; the recent, irreparable “bricking” of a precious laptop loaded with irretrievable music and art in progress; the mercifully nonlethal electrocution of opener tiLLie before a show in Texas; a broken foot incurred whilst leaping into the crowd at the end of a gig in Boston while wearing platform shoes; and the subsequent, complete breakdown of the aforementioned tour bus late last week. She and “all the girls” making up the pointedly 50 per cent female Baby I’m Back crew were huddled at the back watching the brutal horror flick “Martyrs,” no less.
Not a date was missed due to a lot of expert logistical scrambling on Team Lights’ part. But that still hasn’t quelled chatter amongst all involved of a tour curse.
“At the beginning of the tour, I broke my mirror here in the back lounge. And then bad sh-- started to happen in succession after that and everybody wants to blame the mirror,” laughed Lights. “And I don’t know if it’s because I’m stubborn, but I’m keeping this mirror. That’s the end of the story. F--- superstition.”
Presuming she’s not struck by lightning or abducted by aliens between now and then, this Saturday will mark a triumphant return to the GTA for the 35-year-old singer, synth-tickler and sometime comicbook artist.
Not only has Lights sold out her May 7 gig at the fancy new east-end History venue on the strength of an utterly devoted fan base and her gleaming new 21st-century pop masterwork “PEP,” but also a 1 a.m. performance across town at the Garrison by her bass-shocked alter ego LUN. The latter, responsible for last year’s punishingly heavy EDM EP “haha i like it,” has never made an appearance before a crowd before.
To say Lights — born Valerie Poxleitner, but officially Lights Poxleitner-Bokan since her marriage in 2012 to Blessthefall’s Beau Bokan, with whom she had daughter Rocket in 2014 — has developed into a truly singular force over the past 15 years is a bit of an understatement.
She’s gone from being the sweetvoiced pop outlier on local indie hardcore label Underground Operations, who made 2009’s headturning debut “The Listening,” to a sort of living multimedia art project. Her last album, 2017’s “Skin & Earth,” came with a six-part comic series written and illustrated by Lights herself.
There’s a 16-page mini-comic “filled with Easter eggs” to go along with “PEP,” of course, and the videos and artwork thus far all play around with the concept of something called the Clinic.
You can dive in as deeply as you want, or you can simply sit back and enjoy the music — which is arguably the best and most confident the eternally DIY-driven Lights has ever produced.
“If you’re a fan of Lights, you get more than just music. That’s just what I do because I have so much more to offer. And again, if you only like to listen to the music, that’s there. But I like to appeal to that side of fans who really enjoy digging in and just escaping.”
True, Lights could easily have become, say, Charli XCX if she’d just played the mainstream pop game a little bit more. But she acknowledges that having a rabid following that allows her to roll into cities on several continents and comfortably fill mid-sized theatres and concert halls is kind of the perfect place to be.
“I do recognize that being like that as an artist has caused me to, in some ways, fall between the cracks,” she said. “But I would rather make music that interests me and feels authentic than be, like, ‘Well, this is my sound. I have to stick with it.’ And I’ve come to terms with that.
“It’s stayed the same for 10 years and there’s frustrating things about that, but there’s also comfort in that and freedom. It’s been thing after thing on this tour, and yet every night’s f---in’ great and the crew is amazing and the shows are awesome, so the way I’m looking at it is: if it’s in my control to let myself keep doing this I will, because there are things that are out of my control that will force me not to and that happened for two years with the pandemic.
“So if this is within my control, I’m still moving forward and I’m still doing this sh-- because I really f--in’ love it and I’ll do it even if I have a broken foot.”