Claire Boucher – under the moniker Grimes – can be awkward.
“This is why I should just stop talking and play the songs,” acknowledged the 27-year-old Vancouver singer nervously.
There’s inherent dichotomy between an artist and the person behind that guise. Some are adept at coalescing the two together, some aren’t – like Boucher. In between songs, she sounds almost anxious, stuttering her words.
Don’t be fooled.
Grimes has polished her performance by leaps and bounds. Three years ago, when her major label debut appeared, she would hide behind her stack of synthesizers, focused on translating her bedroom Garage Band songs to a live setting. Now, backed with choreographed dancers and a backup vocalist, she’s transformed into an exuberant performer, flailing her body to the beat in enthusiastic gusto.
Saturday night’s FFF set follows the release of Grimes’ fourth album, Art Angels; the opener of which, “Laughing and Not Being Normal” served the same purpose on Auditorium Shores, its backing track orchestrations tethered by looming string arrangements. The new LP finds the singer unabashedly embracing her K pop influences since the Janelle Monae-assisted “Venus Fly” arrives as the followup to Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” everyone’s been waiting for. From the singer’s aforementioned 2012 breakthrough on 4AD Records, Visions, the cyborg synths of “Genesis” – airy and cotton candy cut with sweet vocals – met with a roar from the massive, spreading audience at the Blue stage.
“Realiti,” another cut from Art Angels, served as a corporeal ballad, with Grimes’ vaporous falsetto shifting from a childish plea to a weird and earnest taunt: “Oh, I fear that no life will ever be like this again/ Your love kept me alive and it made me insane.” Soon after, she launched into the tantalizing “Scream,” all jerking arms and jarring, screaming force.
This article appears in November 6 • 2015.