St. Vincent proved herself peerless at the Uptown last night

St. Vincent

November 19, 2017

Uptown Theater

St .Vincent (Annie Clark) being no stranger to the unconventional, it was not entirely a surprise that her show last night at the Uptown deviated from a typical show structure. What initially sounded like a haul — a 25-minute film followed by two sets of music — ultimately proved to be a refreshing, novel experience. Blazing with strong visual elements and grounded in the virtuoso musicianship that we’ve come to expect from Clark, it was also a powerful demonstration that she is one of the strongest artists working in mainstream music. 

Her show was broken into three acts, the first being a short film she co-wrote and directed, The Birthday Party, a delightfully macabre window into an upper middle–class child’s birthday party, complete with David Lynch-ian music. (This scene-setting score was piped into the Uptown during breaks in the night’s sets as well.)

Approximately 40 minutes after the film (less than ideal for a standing GA crowd), Clark arrived onstage. Striking in fuchsia thigh-high leather boots and a matching bodysuit, she performed alone in front of a gradually opening blue curtain, which revealed no band to accompany her. Her first set of songs pulled from her best-known material: “Cruel,” “Strange Mercy” and “Digital Witness,” all met very warm welcomes from the 1,000-plus in attendance, as did a speed-laced “Birth in Reverse.” She is an unerringly and intensely choreographed performer; during the first song, “Marry Me,” she did not move her feet out of pose. Each song following was similarly performed just so, making her intentions as a visual artist just as apparent as her obvious musical ambitions. 

In the two-minute break between musical sets, Clark changed into a shiny, silver, jet age–inspired minidress, and the large blue curtain vanished to reveal a floor-to-ceiling LCD screen and a red floor that was ringed with LEDs that flashed in myriad configurations.

Clark remained alone onstage the rest of the evening, where she took full ownership of her performance persona, her visuals and music fetishistic, bare and raw. The lent new life to much of the material: “New York” became a participatory anthem, “Savior” a vocals-drenched hypnosis, “Fear the Future” a practical headbanger. The supplemental visuals, highly stylized by Clark to evoke Federico Fellini and designer Ettore Sottass, were almost narcotic.

The show (not including the short film) ran a fast 90 minutes, and it made sense of Masseduction (played in full in the evening’s second half). It’s never been more clear that, in every way that counts, Clark stands alone.

Setlist:

Set 1

Marry Me

Now, Now

The Strangers

Actor Out of Work

Cruel

Cheerleader

Strange Mercy

Digital Witness

Rattlesnake

Birth in Reverse

Set 2 – Masseduction

Hang on Me

Pills

Masseduction

Sugarboy

Los Ageless

Happy Birthday, Johnny

Savior

New York

Fear the Future

Young Lover

Dancing With a Ghost

Slow Disco

Smoking Section