Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair for Natalie Mering: Weyes Blood Makes Hearts Aglow During Night 2 at the Regency

Weyes Blood put me under a spell Sunday night at the Regency Ballroom, and I still haven’t fully recovered. Draped in the white billowing fabric of gods and/or ghosts, she breezed onto the stage like some kind of cross-over between Galadriel and Florence Welch. You can hear Joni Mitchell roots in her singing voice, coupled with an air of Faye Webster meets Alice Phoebe Lou…meets 19th-century vampiress. 

Before anything else, Laetitia Tamko, formally known as Vagabon opened for Weyes Blood. She reigned the stage with magnetic prowess, against the background of her personal multi-instrumental mix. In particular, the lyrics on “Reason to Believe” hit a little too close to home, i.e. “If I gave you time to change my mind, I’d find a way to leave the past behind.” Bald, black, and beautiful, Vagabon and her discography should not be overlooked. 

Fifteen minutes later marked the beginning of Mering’s second night in the city. Surrounded by candelabras, she opened with track one of And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, which spins the all-too-familiar tale of becoming strangers “in the wake of overwhelming changes” (2022). Her ballad is healing, uniting the crowd as children of this dystopian empire. 

“San Francisco might just be one of the best places to play,” says Mering, “but whenever I dream about the city, it’s always Victorian ghosts and the sky is purple or something.” She made a point to engage with the crowd like this in between songs, posing questions about astrology and witchcraft to her very solid fanbase. In fact, many brought actual DVDs to the show, ranging from Into the Woods to the Bee Movie, per her request via Twitter earlier last month. This followed her enrapturing performance of “Movies,” which crescendos from synth to cello a little over halfway through, as she lays bare the cinematic universe of Titanic Rising (2019). Mering christened the blockbuster hit by tossing white flowers into the audience who welcomed her flora with open arms. 

We got to hear “God Turn Me Into a Flower,” in addition to “Hearts Aglow,” and both tracks are layered with intimately religious, but somehow also secular connotations. I’m not a religious person myself, but if there’s anything I believe in, it’s the power of artists like Weyes Blood to bring all kinds of people together. Not only that but her performance reached my ears and heart in a way that only one other artist has done before and that was Florence and the Machine. Both share a profound capacity for recreating labyrinthine melodies which transform into the feeling that you have just become a practicing member of the best coven ever. 

I have since rewatched my videos from the concert and played the 2022 album front to back for what is probably the 62nd time. My love for Weyes Blood is everlasting, but also unraveling and enrapturing all at once. She closed the night by covering “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair),” for she tweeted that exact line before the previous show, and her fans in this city did not disappoint.

Article by Nico Chodor

Photos by Dorothy Eck