St. Vincent @ the ICA, London, 08 July 2009
I had never been to a concert at the ICA before; I see it more as a venue for when I feel the urge to spend three hours on a wooden chair with no room to park my legs room and endure enjoy contemplative experimental cinema. Let’s just say that I now think twice about going to the ICA to see a film. But I’ve always wondered if their music space was as small and “minimalist” as their screening room. I got my answer two nights ago when I went to see Annie Clark of St. Vincent perform there. The venue is indeed rather small: it can only hold 350 but I’d say we were no more than 300 attending Annie’s gig, which really took me by surprise. Isn’t St. Vincent bigger than this? Shouldn’t she be able to play, say, Shepherd’s Bush Empire in front of 1,500/2,000 fans? Or am I that disconnected with reality?
On the plus side, it made for an intimate show and having Annie Clark singing to my face was far from unpleasant. I’m not sure however how pleasant it was for her to have me in her face. She did lock eyes with me early on during one of her songs, only to never do that again the rest of the show. I’m trying hard not to read too much into that.
I like St Vincent’s albums a lot but what really sealed the deal for me was the couple of live performances I had seen online (this one, and that one but particularly this other one). I knew that I was going to really enjoy her perform live, and sure enough, she blew me away. I found her live set up to be quite ambitious for such a small venue to handle (the sound check took for ever and the musicians were struggling to find enough sockets to plug their gear) and between Annie’s electric guitar, her double-mic juggling, the flute, the oboe, the violin, the sax, the bass and the drums, there were lots of sounds coming out of that tiny stage, and not always in a polished manner. The vocals on a couple of songs were so muted that I wondered if that was intentional and Annie’s saturated and aggressive riffs were a bit harmful at times (with each of her short bursts of musical epileptic fits, someone’s eardrums would expire), but who cares, the energy was great and the occasional cacophony would add to the raw quality of her performance. One thing was made very clear that night: Annie is really more of a rock chick than one might think. She might look like a delicate insect but when once plugged in, she turns into a real powerhouse.
Set list: Marry Me, The Strangers, Save Me From What I Want, Now Now, Actor Out Of Work, Paris Is Burning, The Bed, Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood, Black Rainbow, Marrow, Just The Same But Brand New / the encore: The Party + Your Lips Are Red
