{"id":26934,"date":"2017-11-27T09:34:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T14:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=26934"},"modified":"2017-11-27T13:37:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T18:37:28","slug":"st-vincent-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=26934","title":{"rendered":"St Vincent"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time<\/a> I saw St Vincent, she\/they were opening for Andrew Bird at the Cat's Cradle. <\/p>\n

\n
\nNikon D90, 18-105mm
\n2009\n<\/p>\n

I'd never heard St Vincent before, and since we were right up front and they were the opening band, the sound was terrible. I had no idea what they were playing. But there were actual instruments on stage, and people were playing them, along with a lot of sequenced electronics. It was obvious the star was Annie Clark, but she was still one of the band. <\/p>\n

The next time<\/a> I saw them\/her, it was at another small club. But they had graduated to a full-on stage show with intricate choreography and costumes. There was a drummer and two keyboard players. Annie Clark sang and played guitar. But, it was hard to say if the drummer was just playing along to a drum machine or not, and keyboards are always suspect - one of the keyboard players did a lot of performing while the music happily played away. They were never featured musically. Basically, Annie Clark was so much the star that the other people were nearly<\/em> stage decoration.<\/p>\n

\n
\niPhone (repost)
\n2014\n<\/p>\n

But on this tour, in proper theaters not little clubs, she has gone ahead and made it clear. Through a clever series of reveals and misdirections over the first eight or ten songs, she shows everyone who St Vincent really is: Annie Clark. The whole show is her, alone on stage, with just a microphone and a guitar, playing to thunderous backing tracks. No amps, no pedals, no cords. <\/p>\n

\n
\niPhone\n<\/p>\n

Behind her, a giant screen showed videos (mostly of her) and the lights were dazzling. She must have a dozen of her signature guitars<\/a>, in different colors - fluorescent orange and pink, blue and yellow, a gold one tuned for playing slide, etc.. All of them color coordinated with the movies and lighting. It was an impressive, almost overwhelming, presentation.<\/p>\n

And the music was good, too! She played almost everything I wanted to hear, and it all sounded fantastic. Even though I'm a little naturally skeptical of pre-recorded backing tracks, she made the show work. Instead of having a few bored-looking people behind her poking at keyboards pretending to play, she just went ahead and made herself the whole show, which she's always been anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time I saw St Vincent, she\/they were opening for Andrew Bird at the Cat's Cradle. Nikon D90, 18-105mm 2009 I'd never heard St Vincent before, and since we were right up front and they were the opening band, the sound was terrible. I had no idea what they were playing. But there were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26934"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26944,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26934\/revisions\/26944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}