Annie Clark AKA St. Vincent brought her sweet voice and ripping guitar riffs to the Melbourne Hi-Fi Bar in impressive fashion.
Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire! were a very nice surprise for the support act. The Adelaide natives put on an apt performance of some of their latest material that the crowd lapped up and then some. The gorgeous Caitlin Duff crooned about the stage, capturing the audience who were crying for more by the time the band had finished their set.
The mercurial St. Vincent took to the stage in an array of smoke and lights as she stepped on a nearly bare stage consisting of her band tucked into the corners, a throw rug, her guitar, and a theremin – naturally. The beautiful songstress came from humble beginnings as a member of The Polyphonic Spree and a touring member for Sufjan Stevens respectively, and has grown to carve her own path as one of the most unique musicians going around.
Decked in a shirt that looked like it’s from Tim Burton’s Wonderland and some very sexy leather short shorts, the enchanting Clark got things underway with the delightfully sweeping intricacies of ‘Surgeon’, from her latest album Strange Mercy. Her voice is somewhat synonymous with your Regina Spektors and your Beth Gibbons, but Clark brings another piece of ammo to her live performance that separates her from the static of the aforementioned, her guitar skills. She is fierce with her axe, as she goes from providing dulcet tones, to tearing out an immense riff that could melt your face at the flick of a pedal.
She croons through some slower material like the dreamy ‘Cheerleader’ before picking up the pace with ‘Actor Out Of Work’ from her sophomore album Actor. The track is a personal favourite and its live replication is certainly something to savour, with her tinkling voice bouncing eerily between the crazy guitar melodies and galloping drums.
She stops for her first real chat to the crowd, it’s a little stilted so she heads straight into ‘Dilettante’, and the real ice-breaker comes for her during it’s performance. Poor Annie Clark, living out the professional nightmare as she forgets a line to the song, but instead of ignoring it and carrying on, she acknowledges it. I’m probably doing her no favours by mentioning it myself, but her sincerity within the moment more than likely saved the punters of The Hi-Fi from wondering ‘how the f**k did she forget her own song?’ There’s an awkward moment when everyone flicks through their iPhones for the lyrics, and come up empty handed by the time Clark starts the replay. She gets to the line again and is still unable to draw it from her memory, but instead of admitting fault this time, she hilariously turns it around on the audience as she quips with a smile ‘Why don’t any of you know this!?’ before successfully completing the song.
Highlights of the set came in the form of ‘Cruel’, the single from Strange Mercy. Clark’s tale about the song’s music video got the crowd chuckling, but the song itself got one of the biggest cheers of the night, with it’s cutesy keyboard part and her dreamy voice getting the crowd bobbling along. The other highlight was an unreleased song called ‘Krokodil’, which saw Clark put down her guitar, and thrash about with mic in hand, before taking everyone by surprise and getting amongst the sweaty crowd, and then disappointingly climbing atop of shoulder that didn’t belong to me.
Clark’s astute performance at The Hi-Fi ensures that she will be welcome back to our shores with welcome arms. Her ability to flick between sweet songstress and killer axe woman makes for a show as intriguing as her music.
