St. Vincent has embodied many personas on stage in her nearly two-decade career.
Promoting earlier albums, Annie Clark — the woman behind the moniker — was the aloof genius, all business on stage. In 2014, touring behind her self-titled LP, she leaned on world building through stage props and choreography. A two-part tour behind 2017’s Masseduction saw her first as a solo act, relying on stage blocking and curtains to add dynamism aside from her mind-bending guitar work; the latter half was an art pop pursuit with a full band, all of the men on stage obscured by beige masks covering their faces.
With each of these eras, to borrow Taylor Swift parlance, Clark furthered an exploration that started in the studio, her stage presence mirroring the tone of her albums. Each of these costumes allowed her to operate at some level of remove. Ultimately, her shows were about showing you St. Vincent, not Annie Clark.
The Moody Amphitheater stage was dark as Clark launched into the foreboding opener “Reckless,” a single beam of light slicing through behind her. As the music built on the still-dark stage, Clark’s slightly scratched alto ringing out over the swell, I wondered if the most recent, All Born Screaming version of St. Vincent would adopt the brooding self-seriousness of some of the world’s best guitarists – whom Clark can certainly count herself among. Suddenly, the song crescendoed in a sonic crack as the stage washed bright white.
The veil had been pierced.
For the next hour and a half, each of the visions of St. Vincent that she’s put forth over the years culminated across a setlist that spanned her catalog. She was feral, bellowing into the microphone as she stared down the crowd, wide eyed. She was uninhibited, stumbling around the stage Bambi-legged, the mic and guitar acting as her only center of gravity. She was funny, armed with quips and an easy manner that I like to think she reserves, at least some of, for the home-state crowds.
She was wholly and completely Annie Clark.
The performance felt like a woman who had stepped into her own. If each of her tours have been fashioned after the album they support, it tracks that her 2024 self-produced banger All Born Screaming would evoke such a comfort and presence.
Playing with a deft four piece behind her that included Texas multi-instrumentalist Robert Ellis on bass, Clark dipped in and out of guitar work, with Jason Falkner, Beck’s touring guitarist for decades, picking up lead in between. She let Falkner cook, even on the big guitar parts on new material like “Broken Man,” but took control for iconic riffs: The climbing, dystopian “Marrow” and the whammy bar frenzy that closed out “Cheerleader” were enough for anyone who came to see her shred.
But Clark’s voice, more than any point in her career, felt like as much of a presence as the six-string. There were moments of screamed catharsis, with Clark holding absolutely nothing back on all-out yelps and nailing them. The refrain closing “Broken Man” – “What are you looking at?” – felt genuine and threatening, Clark daring the audience to look away as she poured it out. “Candy Darling” – the normally wistful, understated Daddy’s Home closer – was transformed into an all-out blues ballad, with Clark’s comfortable alto stretching ever higher before snapping back. She dedicated the song, written for the late Andy Warhol muse, to “the fuckin’ true freaks, the Texas outlaws,” and delivered for them.
Clark waded into said freaks for an extended version of “New York.” After commanding the crowd to clap on the 2s and 4s, she stepped into the pit. Promptly, she was given a pair of sunglasses and a Luck Reunion trucker hat (“It’s a Mr. Potato Head moment,” she said). The crowd then supported Clark as she stepped across their hands as she sang, with a few near-drops along the way. “Vaudeville!” she declared after one of those shakier moments, before surfing back to the stage. That encapsulated an ease Clark demonstrated throughout the night. Interrupting “Dilettante,” she said: “I come from Dal-laaaas,” before quickly adding: “The least cool thing to say.”
The performance felt like a woman who had stepped into her own. If each of her tours have been fashioned after the album they support, it tracks that her 2024 self-produced banger All Born Screaming would evoke such a comfort and presence. The album was a return to so much of the core of what makes Clark great, both vocally and musically. The show matched that perfectly.
After a to-the-point one-song encore, Clark removed her in-ear monitors. “I love you, Texas,” she said. You could tell she meant it, not just as St. Vincent the performer, but as Annie Clark, too.
Find more photos from St. Vincent’s April 7 performance here.
This article appears in April 4 • 2025.