On Monday night, St Vincent took to the stage to rapturous applause at a packed out Shepherd's Bush Empire in London.
St Vincent is Annie Clark; quite possibly the most gorgeous woman in rock and roll presently. In the live show she is backed by two keyboard and synthesiser players and a drummer. It seems her bandmates are almost cast aside, because the stage is centred all around Clark and her constant wranglings with her own electric guitar.
The set begins with three tracks from her latest album Strange Mercy; tracks from the album are peppered throughout the set. It seems as if Annie Clark is wanting and waiting to be unleashed. She has an edge to her, that makes her whole performance incredibly intriguing. During the intricate guitar riff of Chloe in the Afternoon for example; it is almost as if there is a monster about to escape Annie, as she twitches and snaps across the stage to play the chords.
She then delved into her back catalogue to play tracks from her previous albums. Actor out of Work and the simply beautiful, enchanting yet disconcerting Black Rainbow going down extremely well in the enraptured Arena. The audience were an attentive, head-nodding mixture of old and young. Certainly the appeal of St Vincent seems universal; albeit tonight it was only in this small corner of West London for ninety minutes.
Awesome renditions of Cruel and Marrow; plus an amazing cover of the Pop Group's She is Beyond Good and Evil confirmed the fact that St Vincent; dressed strikingly all in black, rocked. Clark returned to encore with the quite stunning and haunting, The Party. And then with her final track, she left us in no doubt that this was a ten out of ten rock and roll show.
The lyrics, guitar and synthesiser all sound so angrily energetic in Your Lips Are Red; and it appeared that the volcano had finally erupted. She went for it. For a good couple of minutes, Annie Clark had left the stage and dived into the crowd for a short lie down.
There was something particularly terrifying about St Vincent for the duration of her performance at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. It is the edginess and uniqueness of each song, which is definitely her appeal. Her performance is incredibly watchable. This was St Vincent unleashed, live, powerful, scary and wholly captivating; and it was darn good.
