đź•’ This article is more than 5 years old (Published Jan 28, 2018).
Annie Clark graced San Francisco last week with her widely-discussed new concert tour, aptly baptized “Fear the Future.” Four years after the Digital Witness tour, which positioned St. Vincent at a peculiar intersection of music, theater, and performance art, there was much to expect from the upcoming album Masseduction and the accompanying tour.
The new record, to me at least, didn’t end up feeling as cohesive as her previous albums, and after hearing mixed reactions to her new glitzy tour, I didn’t know what to expect. On top of that, with Clark’s newly-found spot in the celebrity limelight thanks to her relationship with Cara Delevingne, I wondered: is St. Vincent’s new persona a genuine work of art or is Annie Clark joining the ranks of Dorian Gray? Well, despite my initially lukewarm acceptance of her new record and image, I have to say that the concert was, luckily, nothing short of brilliant.
The first half consisted of Masseduction-ized renditions of songs from previous albums, during which Clark progressively moved across the triangular stage, finally ending at the center, as if she wanted to figuratively portray her growth as an artist during the last decade. Snippets of choreography from the previous tour could easily be seen in “Rattlesnake,” “Birth in Reverse,” and “Digital Witness,” and the self-lacerating tracks from Strange Mercy felt pleasantly unrecognizable with the new subdued production and Clark’s all-pink leather outfit.
After a short break following the first set, she returned to the stage, which at that point was subtly redesigned, donning a new outfit and quickly proceeded to play the entirety of Masseduction. There was little—if any at all—difference between the concert and studio versions of the songs, but Clark’s exceptional guitar-playing skills were enough to compensate for this lack of variation.
The second part of the show, however, was probably the reason for the plethora of mixed opinions I heard in the months preceding the show. The austere center-stage podium, flashy background videos (which mostly featured excerpts from her promo videos), and the lack of live band all might have seemed unnecessarily vain. It’s almost hard to imagine that that St. Vincent of the Marry Me and Actor era would ever entertain an auditorium of concertgoers with backing tracks and bizarre promo videos, but in some way, the conceited design of the show worked well—and likely intentionally—with the album’s overt focus on power, sex, and drugs.
Interestingly, I found the new tour invariably more personal and spontaneous than her 2014 Digital Witness tour. Both tours were heavy on choreography and performance art, but Fear the Future show felt familial and not as distant as the one from four years ago. It could be because Tuck and Patti, Clark’s uncle and aunt, opened the show and shared numerous stories about Annie Clark before she became St. Vincent, which created a vastly different atmosphere from the one concocted by Holly Herndon, who opened her previous tour when I saw Clark perform in Boston.
This time, Clark also openly talked to the audience—whether it was sharing political innuendos or satirizing her song “New York”—which was a distinct no-go zone in her previous tour. This is not to say that one was better than the other, but the new tour somehow seemed to be more about Annie Clark and less about St. Vincent.
Altogether, I thought the show was undoubtedly brave and mesmerizing. It takes guts to perform an entire new album after opening the show with ten tracks from previous albums, and Clark certainly staged a captivating performance with an admirable level of confidence. It was also impressive to see another theatrical concert tour that was equally as stunning as—yet so different from—the Digital Witness tour.
Maybe the well-oiled atmosphere won’t suit everyone, but I see no reason to expect a leisurely performance from a musician who has transcended the stereotypical expectations of a solo female artist. Granted, it all might feel a little too self-centered, but who cares? Annie Clark has put a lot of work into her art to deliver some of the most entertaining music today, and if that comes with a little bit of vanity, let her have it.
Cover photo courtesy of Mariana Rodriguez Hakim.