St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

[PhilsFan]

If I was constructing a St. Vincent setlist, it would be something like this:

Spoiler

1. Rattlesnake
2. Cruel
3. Actor Out of Work
4. Now, Now
5. Marrow
6. Psychopath
7. Savior
8. Happy Birthday Johnny
9. Surgeon
10. Masseduction
11. Huey Newton
12. Digital Witness
13. I Prefer Your Love
14. Year of the Tiger
15. Laughing with a Mouth of Blood
16. The Strangers
17. Cheerleader
18. Los Ageless
    Encore
19. Your Lips Are Red
20. New York
21. Strange Mercy
22. Severed Crossed Fingers

 

[gump]

Review of the concert:

Spoiler

The live show is certainly different this time around. The lack of band is easily the biggest disappointment. The light show is good, but the first set with her just playing by herself, often with neutered, slowed down backing tracks to songs from the first four albums, leaves a lot to be desired. She's shredding even more on the guitar, but hers is a full sound and this takes the emphasis off of that. It's also only 10 songs total from the first four albums. Some really good stuff is not being played, consequently.

The portion with the new album is a very good visual representation of it, and it's clear that the band being sacrificed this time around was with this element in mind. The visuals are almost entirely Annie, pieced together from music videos and promo clips already released. It creates an interesting effect. The songs on this album are better suited for this type of presentation than any of the old material, so it works for the most part.

The ending of Dancing with a Ghost > Slow Disco > Smoking Section is exactly as it is on the album: it's not that any of it is bad, but the penultimate song in the tracklisting probably should have been something with a little more tempo.

Los Ageless still may be her best song to date. Already seemed as popular as her biggest hit (Digital Witness) from the oldies half of the set.

I saw the show last night, and I have a slight different impression from you, Peef. I think it worked well without a full band, putting the focus solely on her and her guitar. To me, this album and tour are the culmination of the evolution in her aesthetic vision. It's an uncompromising artistic statement, from the opening movie to the minimalist decor in the opening songs to the performance of the full album. My friend and I were discussing how this show is reminiscent of an Almodovar film in which every color and angle is well thought through to convey a particular emotion. I don't think this could be done with a drumkit and other musicians on the stage.

It's interesting how you can see her evolution as a performer over the last 3 tours. Strange Mercy was a pretty standard rock show. After the self-titled, you could start to see glimpses of her artistic vision in the album art and show choreography. And this is now her complete statement. If I had to guess, she will go back to a more standard rock show with her next tour.

New York (the song) was pretty special for a homecoming show. She sang a bit of it a cappella ("a Frank Sinatra version") and then went back to the backing track. The crowd was nuts and if was quite emotional. Even though she has (I think) more or less moved to LA, it's pretty clear she is still very attached to the city. Fun fact: her favorite bar (Hotel Delmano) is about a block a way from where I live.

 

[Mack_Again]

i mean, i only watched the footages from youtube but it seems like her first set with older songs looked super awkward without the band but other Masseduction songs seemed okay with just Annie.

 

[gump]

Hot damn, this Coachella set with a full band is sounding soooo good.

 

[U2inUtah]

I'm watching too. Los Ageless was pretty great.

 

[Joey788]

Hot damn, this Coachella set with a full band is sounding soooo good.

Going to see her again at Boston Calling in a month. Watched a bit of Coachella and it made me even more excited to see the full band takes on these songs. Plus, it looks like she did some live remixing of her older material too! Plus, the visuals are pretty sweet.

 

[PhilsFan]

Is the full band back or was it a one-time Coachella thing? Because the solo show was a bit underwhelming.

 

[gump]

It looks like it's a new show that she will be playing from now on.

 

[PhilsFan]

God damn it, and she comes back to the Delaware Valley while I'm out of town.

 

[gump]

A nice little performance from the Actor era is now streaming - her band was so good back then...

 

[lazarus]

So is no one going to talk about Annie being a guest DJ on the U2 Sirius radio station?

That was a surprise.

 

[cobl04]

give me more context. i dont know what that meaans.

 

[Popmartijn]

It's unfortunately quite difficult to me to listen to U2 X Radio on Sirius XM, not being in the US and such. I might give it another try after figuring out which Internet cookies to manipulate so that Sirius does allow me to listen to them.
I am interested in hearing that episode with St. Vincent (as well as Edge's conversation with Tom Morello. The one he did with David Byrne was excellent.).

 

[lazarus]

How did you manage to hear the David Byrne one?

 

[Popmartijn]

That first week (first few days?) I was able to go to their site and listen to the U2 channel.

 

[Joey788]

give me more context. i dont know what that meaans.

Basically, Annie Clark said a sentence or two about each U2 song she chose to play, followed by the song itself. I can't recall all of them, but here's what I think she played.

"All I Want Is You" (She said this song is tied to her memories of watching "Reality Bites."

"One" (She spoke a bit about seeing U2 on the PopMart tour, mentioning the lemon and how it was such a memorable early concert experience for her.

"Numb" (She loved the song's mantra style list of instructions.)

"Bullet the Blue Sky" (She raved about how Edge is playing the feedback in the song's intro.)

I think she also played "Mysterious Ways." The program was only about a half hour.

 

[lazarus]

What sucks is that none of this stuff leaks into the regular indie media because of the exclusivity. If you google St. Vincent and U2 all you'll get is that they both covered Stairway to Heaven recently.

But imagine a regular Annie Clark interview on Pitchfork where she says all this about U2, or if they reported on these guest artist DJs on U2's channel and what they said.

It's the kind of positive cred they could use at this point.

 

[cobl04]

Is there a way to listen back to it? Very cool, I will post about it;

 

[gump]

New St. Vincent coming up next year, with a pretty major sonic shift according to Annie:

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/12/st-vincent-new-album-2021/

 

[cobl04]

Fuck I love her. Sign me the fuck up.

 

[iron yuppie]

New song premiering tomorrow morning around 8:00 ET, apparently.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

It's pretty full-on. There's a piece of the instrumentation that reminds me a lot of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by the Eurythmics.

 

[Joey788]

I like it! It's definitely got that early 70s vibe, like a combo of Bowie's Ziggy and Young Americans phases. I also hear a lot of Beck's Midnite Vultures - a style I wish more artists would try their hand at. I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the album!

 

[gump]

Her album with David Byrne is clearly still paying off, given the Talking Heads/New Wave influence all over this thing. With some Prince or Electric Lady/Dirty Computer Janelle sprinkled in. The near total absence of guitars is notable given how great a guitarist she is.

It's okay, I think, but I hope the rest of the album is better. I like the direction but feel that this song is lacking something.

 

[LemonMelon]

Sounds good to me! Needs more guitar wank though.

 

[cobl04]

I like it... but it's literally just Midnite Vultures. Like not even elements of it, it sounds like a track that was left off it. The processed, quasi-rap vocals, the slide guitar, the instrumental squalling. Not sure I want a full album of that, because I could just listen to Midnite Vultures.

 

[gump]

This is such a left turn for her. Wow.



I like it more than the first song. Finally getting some guitar work from her made me happy.

 

[gump]

Still not sure how I feel about the album, but this was fun:



Mark Guiliana, who played on Blackstar and on a bunch of great jazz ensembles, was in the band. Really cool.

Not a fan of Annie not even holding a guitar in Pay Your Way in Pain, though.

 

[gump]

Not feeling the new St. Vincent record, guys. And I'm a sucker for that kind of sound. There are some nice moments for sure (I really love Down), but overall it's a bit...meh.

 

[LemonMelon]

I think it's her weakest since Marry Me. Cool vibe, but it's the first time that her music has felt kind of toothless since the beginning. I was a little bored, honestly. And that's strange to say because I don't think I disliked anything on it. It's just that the overall experience wasn't very exciting.

At its absolute worst, Masseduction was revealing and risked putting fans off. Daddy's Home is good shit to snort coke on a yacht to, like the last Arctic Monkeys record. But I know she's capable of better.