Annie Clark — aka St. Vincent — kicked off a sold-out two-night stand at the 9:30 Club on Saturday, showcasing songs from her self-titled album while flaunting the superb live chops that make her one of the truly outstanding performers in contemporary indie music.
Currently on her first tour since an extended collaboration with David Byrne, the 31-year-old Clark has clearly picked up some tendencies from the art-pop elder statesman. Over the jittery avant-funk beat of the set-opening “Rattlesnake,” she started the show with a choreographed dance that featured shimmies, bunny hops, a graceful bow, and martial-arts poses, all of which were reminiscent of Byrne’s eccentric stage routines during the Love This Giant tour. When she picked up her Music Man guitar after the first verse, fans cheered in anticipation before had she played a single note, and they flat-out shrieked when she unleashed the song’s jagged six-string solo, her face brightening into a grin as she coaxed her instrument into an dissonantly virtuosic roar.
Displays of dazzling musicianship, overt theatricality, and quirky charm continued throughout the 21-song set, which featured older favorites like “Cruel” and “Marrow” alongside new standouts like “Digital Witness” and “Birth In Reverse.” While crooning the ballad “I Prefer Your Love,” Clark lounged on a three-stepped stage prop that looked like a Modernist ziggurat, fully reclining to sing part of the last verse in a supine position, perhaps in allusion to a line from the gorgeous “Prince Johnny” (“We had such a laugh of it / prostrate on my carpet”), which she dramatically delivered two songs later from the heights of the top step.
Backed ably by Matt Johnson on drums, Daniel Mintseris on keyboards, and Toko Yusada on Minimoog and guitar, Clark turned the beat-heavy “Huey Newton” into a late-set highlight, and her voice rose to a stirring falsetto during the always exhilarating “Northern Lights.” While she didn’t dive into the crowd during the set-capping rocker “Krokodil,” as she often did during her Strange Mercy tour, Clark whipped fans into a frenzy as she flailed about and writhed on the stage floor amidst dizzying strobe lights. Her customary show-stopper, “Your Lips Are Red,” closed out the three-song encore, the song’s epic riffs and lilting denouement culminating what will surely go down as one of the best local shows of the year.
