On Friday, September 13th, St. Vincent returned to Washington D.C. as part of her All Born Screaming tour, boasting a setlist comprised mainly of new material from her self-produced 2024 album of the same title. Annie Clark, who goes by the stage name St. Vincent, has been playing in her own band since 2006, and has released 7 full-length studio albums since 2007.
St. Vincent is an incredibly renowned artist. She boasts a placement of 26th on Rolling Stone’s greatest guitarists of all time list, her own signature Ernie Ball Music Man guitar with a unique three mini humbuckers, and the honor of co-writing Taylor Swift’s hit song
“Cruel Summer.” Yet, her latest album lacks any bells and whistles that one could expect from contemporary guitar pop. No trendy aesthetics, sensational music videos, or social media hype campaigns accompanied the release of All Born Screaming. The album as a whole is a remarkably dark entry into St. Vincent’s discography. However, the intensely personal and barebones approach of the album allows Clark’s talent as a musician to shine through on stage.
Clark took the stage at The Anthem to “Reckless,” a slow but suspenseful song that built energy and excitement in the audience. “Stranger, come in my path and I’ll eat you up, I’ll tear you limb from limb or I’ll fall in love,” She sang in a deep and menacing tone. While St. Vincent’s vocals immediately established her formidable and commanding presence on stage, her guitar only served to reinforce her mesmerizing grip on the audience. When performing “Broken Man,” one of the most distorted songs on All Born Screaming, St. Vincent’s guitar resonated loudly and righteously through her amplifier, producing a heavy tone far superior to that of the studio-recorded version of the song.
St. Vincent’s stage featured a screen that at times showed prerecorded visuals to add an atmospheric element to her musical performance while showing a carefully selected camera angle of her performance on stage at other times. The visual elements were at times weird and Lynchian, while at other times they brought the audience close and intimate with Clark as she sang a more mellow song. Clark was not one for addressing the crowd in between songs, aside from asking age-old questions such as “How are we feeling tonight DC?”
St. Vincent’s “About” section for All Born Screaming reads, “Ever since she covered Big Black’s ‘Kerosene’ live in 2011 and the subsequent cataclysmic 7” split “Krokodil”/”Grot,” fans have known that some evil lurked in Clark’s guitar. On All Born Screaming—the first half, at any rate—that lacerating aggression possesses a St. Vincent album for the first time, unleashing a reeling thrash laced with the formative DNA of Albini at his most corrosive and the ugly, spectacular catharsis of Nine Inch Nails, and opening up a brand new fracture in her songwriting.” While there are glimpses of said evil guitar in both St.
Vincent’s album and performance, this description is a bit of an exaggeration. For someone incredibly renowned for their guitar, the guitar seemed to take a back seat to vocals throughout St. Vincent’s performance. St. Vincent in no way failed to deliver when singing, yet the lack of impactful solos or improvisation detracted from the experience. If only St. Vincent had allowed more space for her guitar to shine, then her performance would have reached a higher echelon.
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