Live DC: St. Vincent / Foreign Born @ The Hotel

February 27, 2008 by Svetlana  Send to a Friend

all photos: Joel Didriksen

First of all, lets all put our hands together for the new RNR Hotel sound system. Good things come to those who wait. And you waited.
Secondly, this show was PACKED. I would like to say that I had the foresight and the wisdom to know this, but I had this whole night pegged as a little slice of vaguely avant-guard pop cake that not that many people would be eager to snack on on a school night. Obviously, I know nothing and you can remind me of that repeatedly.

Now, when Joel and I cruised in at 8.30, there was already a line outside of decidedly cool, sharply dressed kids outside, all patiently lining themselves up towards the front and awaiting….

FOREIGN BORN
who, are DIM MAK’s laters hopes. I’ve never seen them live before (there is a first time for everything) but I enjoyed their cloudy-day-on-a-beach music enough to look it up. Turns out they’re toured with Walkmen, Black Mountain, French Kicks and Grizzly Bear (who btw, is Annie Clark’s (aka St.Vincent’s) favoritest band EVER. And that is what they sound like: if you took the slightly tripped out layering of Grizzly Bear, add some of the Walkmen energy (the lead singer has one of the more appealing frontmen personalities I’ve seen of lately: cool, happy to be here, and never cocky) and twirl those dreamy French Kicks swirls of joy in, and you got yourself Foreign Born. Plus, Patrick told me they were in GQ last month, which you know, means they’e not totally ugly. Which is always a plus if someone is coming to both listen AND WATCH you. (don’t even deny it)

speaking of not totally ugly (or, in this case, totally NOT ugly), next up was

ST.VINCENT
A question for Annie Clark-is it really fair to be that cool, and that pretty and that talented?
Probably not, but hey, no one there last night was complaining.
Before I venture into waxing lyrical about the music can I just say that the crowd was packed with both gamine women, all obsessed with Annie in ways that female gender can only be obsessed with other women they really, really want to be, and men (including some very big, burly, manly to the core) men who I can only imagine are either
a. hoping Annie will marry them
or
b. finally were thankful they found some “music in dresses” they could unabashedly like.

Now, if you’ve read my interview with Annie you’ll see that the musical pedigree in this case is no slouch: stints with Sufjan and The Polyphonics, growing up in a jazz musician household…etc.
So, as Ben said: “This is no beginner’s stuff”.
I’ve racked my brain to describe this music without using the ominous words “psyche” or “experimental” (though Annie herself referred to the background as “something to trip off at”) so this is what I came up on short notice this morning:
“the most perfect deconstruction of delicacy”.
which sounds ridiculous, but is true.
I read somewhere that you have to REALLY LOVE MUSIC to be able to take it apart and ANNIE REALLY LOVES MUSIC.
Sure, there is a guitar and a violin and some keys and then there are: birds singing, bells ringing and everything being full or both joy and doom at the same time. Her voice is, in fact, and instrument, and while that is clear if you listen to “Marry Me” it is CRYSTAL CLEAR when you see her live.

At times a little Feist-y, at times a pure “they-don’t-make-them-like-this-anymore-1920s-jazzy” delight (I kept thinking Blossom Dearie! Blossom Dearie! throughout it) it snaps and crackles and pops all over the surface of the songs.
Now, there is so much going on here, that I by no means can even really attempt to analyze it properly, and it, in theory, could get a little overwhelming and I expected a crowd to thin (not because of the quality of music but because this isn’t something you just tune out to, this is a both cerebral and visceral experience we had on hands here) BUT NO.
Annie held them in the palm of her delicate hand and everyone was in rapture (someone naturally screamed “I do” during “Marry Me” but aside from that, everyone was as one.
Paying attention.
Cheering on the new song! (a delight)
Laughing at her jokes.
Clapping in all the right places and hugging their loved ones during the particularly tender moments.
I’d say Annie is going places, but she’s obviously already BEEN places, and for that we should all be grateful.

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