St. Vincent at Bowery Ballroom (2/29)

I had no idea she was so punk rock.

Annie Clark played Bowery (her "favorite venue in the whole world" or some trumped up claim like that) on Friday. I liked it quite a bit, but my expectations were completely flipped. I came away with much more respect for her as a musician and her album, and I found out that she is someone I wouldn't really like to hang out with.

I mean she's stupidly cute for god's sake. I'd think that "cute" is, then, the last thing she'd need to go for. But when she chats up the crowd, it's what she's doing. Like her completely inane story about some truck stop in Montana and taxidermy and a pony (which did provide one funny anecdote, "I don't know if any of you have ever left New York city ever, but...") all to get to the point of playing a solo cover of The Beatles "Dig A Pony," which turned out to be a highlight of the evening. "Why, oh, why," I wondered, "with the lame convo, Annie?" I attribute it to her being a hell of a lot better at expressing herself through song than chit-chat.

I was floored at times by how much rocking was going on. Her band was balls out--that fiddle player, shredding horse hair all over the Bowery stage. The drummer had a penchant for overindulgence, going a little overboard when it wasn't necessary ("drumboree" I like to call it). But I'll take that over being all reserved. The crowd didn't seem to dig it too much. They started to bounce (not literally--I mean leave--this is New York after all, the land where no one dances) about 2/3 of the way through the show (it was way cold in there, too, something that can possibly be attributed to lack of performance energy coming from the stage, or the disinterest teeming from the audience, or both).

She's a helluva guitar player--very precise and rhythmic with a crunchy tone. Her sporadic flitting in triplets, which causes her hair to balloon up over her face, makes her guitar cough and hack. It's quite jarring and a lot of fun. She's a really tense player, which has an effect on her voice (which isn't amazing to begin with--peculiar but not sound).

There was an overall explosion of the songs on Marry Me (a standout record of last year, to be sure)--a surefire arena-rock ending to "Now, Now", a Sonic Youthesque grind to "Your Lips Are Red". "Paris Is Burning" was perhaps the most exploded--a slow dirge to begin and ended with a celebratory storming of the Bastille. The songs were wild and at times out of control. She seemed much more at home, much more honest when enveloped in these explosions she created than when confronted with an audience.

I think her cuteness persona is what deceived the Bowery crowd. They came expecting something whitebread, something lukewarm, something Feist-y and got something colder, rawer and more rock and roll than they bargained for. I'm cool with that, its at least an interesting method of deception. But I'd ask Ms. Clark to kindly not do that next time. Just be real with us.

mark.

(Photo St. Vincent @ Bowery Ballroom NYC courtesy of Amy Wagner)