New material shines in St. Vincent's first-ever visit to Ann Arbor
Annie Clark and company delivered a loose but focused live performance in their visit to the Michigan Theater.
A few years removed from seeing Annie Clark and St. Vincent in concert, I wondered how her creative evolution would impact the band’s live performance and how the more dour and tender material would translate.
That was the major question I had about St. Vincent since the release of her 70’s glam rock concept album Daddy’s Home and the creative reset of 2024’s All Born Screaming: How do you command and maintain the attention of an audience with material that is less immediately rewarding than the surefire hits from your creative heyday?
If you’re Clark, you continue to joyously shred your guitar solos with alien-like texture before tossing in a little playfulness.
During the first set break of her first-ever trip to Ann Arbor, it was apparent Clark had maintained that playfulness and wit as the band’s connective tissue in what was a free-wheeling and boisterous two-hour show on Monday, Sept. 16 at the Michigan Theater.
Comically sounding off on the band’s impromptu visit to the city’s underwhelming, undersized downtown Target before quickly reassuring fans that the nearby campus quad fucking rips, Clark confessed during the first set break that she was a little stoned, later requesting that the lights in the venue be turned on to show the entirety of the audience so she could get a good luck at the faces she felt so lucky to see.
The moment felt like the essence of what Clark aims to do in finding a sweet spot with the audience during the loose and fun performance, juxtaposing her banter and flailing on stage with precision and focus.
That focus was most apparent on new material that often hit just as hard as her more recognizable material, including the funky Big Time Nothing and the steely, streamlined pop of SOPHIE tribute Sweetest Fruit. Hard-edged lead single Broken Man fit into the band’s setlist seamlessly, getting satisfactory reactions from the crowd typically reserved for hits like Digital Witness, Los Ageless and bouncing singalong and fan favorite, New York.
In fact, some of the evening’s more low-energy moments were from some of St. Vincent’s most revered material, including Dilettante and Year of the Tiger from 2011’s Strange Mercy. As songs began to bleed together, it was clear the band’s All Born Screaming material is a more natural fit into its live arsenal than the personal, if more out of place soul from 2021’s Daddy’s Home.
The band bookended the evening with a single spotlight flashing into the crowd as Clark crooned All Born Screaming’s slow-burning opener Reckless; later finishing out the set with an extension of the album’s closing All Born Screaming mantra.
While a quick return to the stage for a low-key rendition of Somebody Like Me ended the evening on more of a comedown than an emotional climax, Clark and St. Vincent demonstrated the new material is intended to bolster, not dilute what is still a potent live show.