What to Wear During an Orange Alert?: Paint the Town Orange

Monday, March 03, 2008

Paint the Town Orange

St. Vincent at Music Hall Williamsburg 2.28.08

Review and images by Dominck Mastrangelo

"Tonight's theme is that we are all giants in the psychedelic forest," said Annie Clark halfway through her performance at Wlliamsburg's Music Hall Thursday night. Clark, who goes by the stage name St. Vincent, really didn't need the mutli-colored wooden shrubs that were set about the stage; her music and stage presence are more than enough. Clark, backed by a full band, opened with "Now Now" (mp3) from last year's excellent full-length debut Marry Me. The later half of the song descending into a wall of sound, Clark swinging herself up and down as she strummed her guitar. One just walking into the show might have thought they'd missed the whole set; as it's the kind of arena rock flurry a band usually ends a concert.

"Paris Is Burning" moved in stops and starts, Clark almost taking too much pleasure as she sings "sleep while I slip poison in your ear." Noted for her guitar work with the Polyphonic Spree and a touring member of Sufjan Steven's band, Clark's skill on the guitar was never more evident than on the show-stopping cover of the Beatles' Dig A Pony. Alone on stage with just her electric guitar people hollered out as she cranked out bluesy, rock riffs. She enjoys the back and forth with the crowd stopping between songs to holler out various neighborhoods in Brooklyn the burrough she calls home. The encore was the neo-standard What Me Worry? Clark coming out for the closer with some friends she found back stage who "just happened" to have their trumpet, violin and flute with them. The ballad with it's closing line of "I'm out of here" was a fitting end if not a little bit of come down from the frenzied pace of the rest of the hour-long show.