I am often amazed by how art seems to come into my life at exactly the right moment. Bodies of work are tossed my way via the algorithm, the recommendation of a friend, or the sheer organic memory of an artist whose work I’d devoured years ago and somehow forgotten about. Something in me latches; there remains a part of my subconscious mind that needs an anchor, some impalpable sound to wrap myself around and declare temporary custody of.
I recently wrote three pieces on St. Vincent (like this one, this one, and this one) for this exact reason: for the last month or so, I have been completely enamored by Annie Clark. The memory of her — or rather, her work, which she takes care to distinguish herself from — floated upwards from somewhere submerged inside of me, a sudden desire born of an ill-fated nostalgia I’ve been feeling lately. Life was simpler when I first stumbled across her work; not better, but simpler, smaller and neatly packed into a box. In spite of my right mind, it feels good to box myself back up sometimes.
But exploration soon became encumberment; I have spent entire days, weeks by now, immersing myself in the sounds of Annie Clark. What began as an attempt to feel the way I did when I first listened to Masseduction at seventeen became something else entirely, an unfolding of her discography and history ushering me starkly into the present. I am not seventeen anymore, although it feels like it sometimes.
How perfect, then, that I was given the opportunity to experience St. Vincent live, amidst my latest wave of musical infatuation. Following a last-minute venue shift to the Mann Center in Philadelphia, an expansive pavilion positioned squarely in Fairmount Park, she opened Roxy Music’s fiftieth anniversary tour, donning her latest encapsulation: coiffed white-blonde hair, a white suit jacket with Daddy printed across the back.
Photo by P Squared
I must admit that a significant part of my recent interest in her comes from a sliver of disappointment. When Daddy’s Home was released last year, I was a dissatisfied listener; not because the album is a steaming garbage fire by any means, but because she had set the bar so high for herself - and then flung the bar across the room. I’m not one to deride a derivation: I’m a staunch defender of Lorde’s Solar Power, and I uphold that Red is the zenith of Taylor Swift’s career thus far. But something about Daddy’s Home just didn’t sit right with me by first listen, or second, or third. I’d given up on the schtick by the time I took my seat at the Mann.
I understand now that St. Vincent’s new era is best experienced and not heard. She took the stage with a delicate finesse (at eight o’clock on the dot), prancing around the stage in gogo boots, each step tender and electric. Her catalog was stylized to befit her new seventies-esque demeanor, exemplified by a jazzy, up-tempo performance of “New York” where Clark crawled into the crowd to serenade her front-row fans.
I, and many others, dismissed Daddy’s Home because it felt like a sacrifice of what had made St. Vincent so spectacular, so magnetic. Her performance was proof not of eschewal but of integration: there was no lack of her signature bombast, no sparing of pomposity - just a different kind. “It’s camp”, my friend leaned over and whispered to me, a word I find painfully mildewed in our overfed zeitgeist, but I have to agree. The Daddy’s Home era is painfully exaggerated and artificial, and it works not in spite of these characteristics, but because of them. It comes off as overindulgent - and it is indulgent, but without sacrifice of genuine curiosity or commitment to artistry. It’s strange and obnoxious, and it just makes sense - much like the seventies themselves.
I am here to declare that if any contemporary artist can pull off such an act, it’s Annie Clark. There is no voice like hers, no hands steering the drilling noise of a guitar, no legs bending impassioned on a stage. Annie Clark was born for this; she is an innate performer, a virtuoso of concert.
Most of the audience surrounding us were seemingly present for the main act; no one in my eyeline could have been under forty years old. Roxy Music is a group whose work I’ve only skimmed the surface of, but their performance at the Mann proved a tried-and-true stage presence, a habitation of the space only possible after fifty years of refinement and mastery. It felt like a production plucked out of 1972 with a budget upgrade, fit with roaring psychedelic visuals and gold-woven performances. Roxy Music incensed the crowd, including multiple gaggles of women with wine glasses who abandoned their seats to swing their hips in the corridors.
Maybe in thirty years, that will be me: on my feet in the front row at a St. Vincent tour, eyes brimmed with tears, reliving a time when things were simpler. Packing myself back into a box, only if for a moment.
Great review. I was at the show. Both Annie and Roxy were incredible. Kind of a genius booking.