St. Vincent is back on the road and inaugurated her tour with a set at Portland, Maine’s Thompson’s Point. She’d previously supported the release with a memorable SNL appearance in April. a concert livestream and a random performance at the opening of the Saint Vincent Hotel in New Orleans, but the Renaissance Woman born Annie Clark hadn’t been on tour since the pre-Covid days and the elaborate performance she delivered in Portland was our first full look at this new 70’s persona.
Her set began with a pair of tracks off her self-titled album, a 2014 release that came out prior to 2017’s MASSEDUCTION. From there, she launched into “Down,” a Jack Antonoff-produced groove that’s a highlight of Daddy’s Home. In support of St. Vincent, Clark put on a show that presented her as a sort of Techno Priestess, and on the next album, she drew rave reviews for an elaborate solo production that reincarnated her as a sort of Dominatrix Barbie. This time around, the theme is all 70’s Manhattan, demonstrated with gold chains, a blond wig, afro’ed backup singers and a revolving backdrop with a cartoony cityscape view.
While she’s mostly known as the vocalist and frontwoman with a knack for extreme fashion; her lead guitar playing is grossly underappreciated and “Birth in Reverse” was an early opportunity to expose that sharp, jittery guitar tone that is instantly recognizable. Extended solos aren’t her thing, but Clark has a tastefully spastic approach to her leadwork that is thoroughly captivating and impossible to imitate. Throughout the evening she seemed to alternate between close to a dozen axes and all of them were St. Vincent Signature Guitar models from Ernie Ball/Music Man. Not only have her guitar chops landed her a massive sponsorship with a major instrument distributor, but unlike the vast majority of signature guitars on the market, she’s created one that’s extraordinarily unique in shape, electronic configuration and mechanical design. Fans of Jack White would have seen him performing with them extensively on his last world tour.
Her backup band was flawless and in light of the variety of directions her discography has taken, that’s no simple feat. Her keyboard player had a Sequential Prophet-6 synthesizer alongside a SubPhatty Moog that cover all of the sci-fi sounds in her arsenal and for her funky Daddy vibe, there was a Wurlitzer electric piano underneath a Clavinet. An upright piano and an old-school Mellotron tape-driven synthesizer rounded out the elaborate display. Longtime bassist Toko Yasuda has been replaced with longtime Beck sidekick Justin Meldal-Johnsen. Johnson alternated between short-scale basses and a digital synth he played on to supplement the keyboard work being executed at the battle station across the stage. His stage presence is unforced and enthusiastic, but not enough to detract from the captivating musicians he’s musically supported.
Towards the end of the set, St Vincent played a version of “Slow Disco” that was infinitely more upbeat than the studio track. It’s one of many examples demonstrated throughout the evening not only of how she augments her studio material for the live setting, but how these live incarnations evolve from tour to tour.
She performed two encores, mostly made up of new songs but including the first performance of “Your Lips Are Red” in a half dozen years. Unfortunately, the pace of the encore was lower key and whatever momentum St. Vincent had built up to that point sort of petered out. That kind of energy drop from the crowd is something any good frontwoman picks up on, and in light of the fact that this was the first date of the tour, it’s hopeful that this will be corrected as the tour progressed with a slight augmentation to the setlist.
While the energy may have been uneven, St. Vincent’s tour opener was a theatrical display executed by an artist with the heart and chops to ensure it was more than just spectacle. Her previous album was one of the best of the past decade and the same can be said about the tour that followed. This performance may not have outdone her MASSEDUCTION two-set extravaganza, but for anyone in attendance with fair expectations, the show more than delivered. Every time Annie Clarke comes to town, her audience is certainly treated to a brand new St. Vincent.
