Live Review: St Vincent

It's great to hear a request that punters refrain from recording tonight's performance, delivered by St Vincent herself (albeit a sonic manipulation of her voice). Midway through the opening track Rattlesnake, Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) straps on her guitar and plays with the ferocity of an experimental Slash. Clark's pedestrian head jerk/shuffling chorey is shadowed by her guitarist/synth player Toko Yasuda and, when the pair lean the tops of their heads against each other, like antelopes locking horns, the contrast between Clark's unruly silver hair and Yasuda's shiny, jet-black locks calls to mind the yin yang symbol.

All St Vincent's backing band members are “clad in black”, as the frontvixen later points out. Her beauty is undeniable; all doe-eyed and with cheekbones to die for, her dancing is a cross between Kate Bush and those Russian folkloric dancers who appear to have roller skates on under their floor-length skirts. Cruel bounces in and tonight's setlist alternates between aggressive and dreamy. I Prefer Your Love takes us down a notch and Every Tear Disappears makes us wanna massage our scars. Clark's banter is as quirky as expected. Throughout the night, she throws our suggestions as to why we are probably similar to her (eg. “When you were young, you made a hot air balloon out of bed sheets…”). It's unbearably hot inside Howler tonight and everyone hopefully has their premium strength deodorant on. Venues should drop the heating to make it comfortable for the dancing folk, not the motionless. Clark stands on an upstage rostrum to deliver Cheerleader and the echoing vocal effects are haunting. Marrow (“H-E-L-P me”) somehow manages to be simultaneously violent and whimsical. There's something a bit 'female Prince' about Clark. She's also this generation's Laurie Anderson
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Clark returns to her rostrum for the encore. Strange Mercy – with its glorious lyricism (“Oh little one/Your Hemingway jawline looks just like his…”) – captivates. This track's instrumental tone evokes Cyndi Lauper's exquisite Time After Time and Clark really invests herself emotionally into the performance. Generously introducing and thanking each member of her backing band separately, Clark credits Yasuda with “angel vocals”. Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley's drummer) gets a well-deserved massive clap. A cacophonous segment leads into an extended silence during Your Lips Are Red. Then the cacophony returns. No wonder David Byrne collaborated with St Vincent – what an extraordinarily unique talent she is!

This is the third of three sold-out shows for St Vincent at Howler. Bring on multiple sold-out nights at intimate venues instead of under-filled stadium shows, we say.