Written & Reviewed by Krysta Ayers
APRIL 7, Austin, TX—St. Vincent, the woman known affectionately for her poignant bodies of work and semi-serious, high-art allure, has been touring since 2006. Rolling Stone has named her the 26th greatest guitarist of all time. She is the true “mother” millennials need (and dare I say, deserve). With this all in mind, she has nothing to prove to us—a small group of approximately 5,000 gathered on a cool spring night at the Moody Amphitheater. But she’s here touring her eighth studio album, All Born Screaming, and dammit if she’s not going to show the crowd every ounce of her talent.
I don’t think there’s a better word to succinctly describe St. Vincent other than “cool.” As soon as she steps on stage, Anne Clark (her government name) becomes a snake’s discarded skin, emerging as St. Vincent. She’s in all black, wearing ripped tights under tailored shorts with a phallic belt hanging in front (anyone else think that?), and a bra under an oversized blazer (fucking casually cool). Her dancing includes delicate gesticulations, like butterfly hands that evoke Napoleon Dynamite’s talent show performance—and even this she makes look fucking cool.
All that to say: Thank the music gods that St. Vincent has created her spot in the limelight after touring with Sufjan Stevens all those years ago. And while we don’t need to hash out the lore of St. Vincent, we do need to hash out how incredible this show was.
St. Vincent and her band enter stage right and dive into “Reckless.” It’s a slow song, with a gut-punch of a line like, “And I've been mourning you since the day I met you,” as the bridge. There are no trippy graphics playing behind her or grandiose set designs taking up precious space on stage. And as we get to the trancey end, her band builds up the song with a wink of drama to take us into “Fear the Future,” immediately providing a sampling of her 20+ year discography. She is weird, rousing, and she wields her guitar like the seasoned pro that she is. And as she’s backlit with red stage lights, I can feel us in the crowd hold our breath less we muffle the sound of her voice in any way. We are completely entranced.
Her mezzo-soprano vocals bend and fold into buttery layers as she uses her voice like an instrument—she harmonizes, screams, and enunciates every word into the mic in intervals, switching keys with baffling ease. In between chorus and verse, she jerks erratically across the stage, almost like she’s tripping, imitating your drunk uncle leaving the house, or slightly exaggerating Elaine Benes’ dance moves. Everything she does is completely uninhibited—second nature to her. She runs from left to right, playing guitar head-to-head with her bassist and guitarist; launches into some banter and tells us, “I’m from Dallas. I know that’s not a cool thing to say,” which we’re inclined to agree with (and which contradicts the fulsome review I’m already writing in my head as I watch from my seat); and gets lipstick smeared around her mouth (which, of course, she makes look cool). I’ve never seen St. Vincent live before, so her complete abandon on stage and her rock-star coolness is new to me; I am expecting nothing and here she is, delivering everything.
Near the end of the show, she joins the crowd for “New York,” (from her album Masseducation) casually standing on those in the pit and collecting her balance by white-knuckling the hands of those within reach. Hello, she’s “cool” personified. Then, she crowd surfs back to stage like “the only motherfucker in the city who…” could.
She closes out with “All Born Screaming,” singing alone on stage before doing the obligatory two-minute wait before coming back for her encore. And this she sings in a stance I can only describe as a lazy-warrior-II-yoga pose, which I guess is only fitting (sans the lazy part) for someone who has been armored and ready to “destroy” the stage with a guitar-focused performance to remind people that she’s just a talented weirdo with a sharp pen who belongs on stage.