"Hello, gorgeous!” swooned St Vincent, greeting Somerset House’s courtyard with a hammy sigh, theatrically brushing invisible dirt off her shoulders. “What a fuckshow!” she exclaimed, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the world outside. “But I’m so glad we’re all here together in the fuckshow.”
Annie Clark, has been touring her most recent record All Born Screaming since its release back in April last year, but skipped a run of London dates in favour of a one-off show at Royal Albert Hall. Though she brought intensity and some of her heaviest guitar lines to date to the prestigious concert venue, she largely eschewed the eccentricity and theatricality that has come to define her live shows in favour of something much more straightforward. For most artists, rattling through the hits would be nothing unexpected; but from St Vincent - an artist who once toured 2017’s new wave record MASSEDUCTION as a lone absurdist figure playing guitar in front of a closed theatre curtain - sticking to convention isn’t how she usually plays things.
While there were fleeting flickers of this more earnest Annie Clark at Somerset House - before thanking her audience towards the end of the show, she briefly clarified that she was no longer doing “a bit” - she was back on largely playful, slightly absurdist form.
Though it was a show slightly heavier on tracks from All Born Screaming, a tangled, riff-heavy reset following 2021’s soul-influenced Daddy’s Home, plenty of older fan favourites made an appearance, including Marrow from her second record, 2009’s Actor. The only solo album from her back catalogue to be skipped entirely was her chamber pop debut Marry Me.
Where older cuts from her self-titled album and 2011’s latex-coated Strange Mercy did surface, they were often tweaked and retooled to suit this more direct era. This tour’s arrangement of Cheerleader was particularly strong, many of its haunted, apocalypse-at-Disney-World strings traded in for additional, punchier melodies, and jazzy flourishes of vocal improvisation.
Occasionally, Clark tweaked old lyrics, sang through comically heavy levels of distortion, or punctuated verses with jokey sidenotes, often delivered in a twanging, exaggerated accent – though, not all of her asides landed, with some feeling forced and grated.
“Where you from?! Cardiff!” she yelled nonsensically, in what sounded like an abysmal attempt at a British accent. Others, though, were brilliant additions. Whereas the original version of Cheerleader sees Clark singing of seeing America with no clothes on, this live version headed in a different direction. “I’ve seen America…. “ she sang, before pausing and cackling with despair. “Oh god!”
“Every time on earth is fucked up, right, and we’re living through another,” she told the audience, briefly dropping her persona again and getting real between songs as darkness descended. “I wanna say I have hope, and that’s not a thing that comes easily,” she added, with a hearty laugh.
Soon enough, though, it was back to business, as Clark set about selecting a suitable volunteer to propel her across the top of the crowd during New York. “Do you consent to me getting on your shoulders?” she asked. “You sure? How’s your back? Been doing Pilates?”
And after a brief break, Clark returned for an encore of just one more song - her tribute to Candy Darling, who inspired the likes of Andy Warhol and Lou Reed during her life in Sixties and Seventies New York.
“This one’s for the creeps, and the outsiders,” she concluded. “I think that’s everyone in this fucking building!”
Somerset House Series continues until July 20; somersethouse.org.uk
