St. Vincent at Yonge and Dundas Square
With the surfacing of her new self titled album I recently fell in Love with St. Vincent. You can imagine my delight when the NXNE festival announced that St. Vincent would be headlining the free concert at Yonge and Dundas Square. Every year NXNE chooses a fantastic widely known and widely loved band to perform for free as a means of promoting the festival – this year was no exception
If we were looking at just the straight up musicality I could go on for days as to why I love St. Vincent’s music. Throughout her four albums there is an interesting progression of style. Most notably in her newest album are the early 80’s influences simmered by her soothing vocals and topped off with her sexy, double entendre lyrics. That’s be being ignorant to her killer guitar abilities (I mean she did go to Berkley for guitar… The girl can shred!)
When St. Vincent first hit the stage I was shocked. I had expected that such a multi-talented musician wouldn’t have time for an elaborate performance. I figured her music would speak for itself. I was not expecting the balls to the walls performance that I witnessed.
There were little dance numbers choreographed between her band members and herself. They were simple, almost robotic movements and I have to tell you dear reader – not since the Robert Palmer “Addicted to Love” music video have such few movements felt so damn sexy.
During one of my favourite songs from the new album ‘Prince Johnny’, she slowly slid herself down her square throne – dropping out of what seemed to be physical exhaustion from her emotional release. The catharsis of such a powerful and draining song left her body almost limp on stage – along with leaving the audience feeling emotionally purged. A special moment occurred to me during this song. You see the song itself retells the story of a scorned lover. As I looked over to my right – in the heart of the song I saw a young female leaned over the banister. She was wiped, leaning all of her weight against the banister and using as little strength as possible to pull her cigarette to her mouth. You could tell she was having a moment with the song – it was teleporting her to a universal sensual reminder of a lost love. Getting to witness this connection made me feel part of something unique.
The clear crowd favourite was the performance “Cheerleader” off her album ‘Strange Mercy’. The mob chanted out the lyrics as means of displaying their admiration for the song. The audience had a great vibe during this moment.
A personal favourite was the performance for “Rattlesnake” off her self titled album. The energy of the song was hair raising. The combination of fuzzy bass rhythms, sensual moans, chanting lyrics and bursting volume of her electric guitar solo’s was mind blowing. The song, which I always considered one of my favourite on the album was out shone with its live performance.
Needless to say I was not disappointed. This was potentially one of the best concert experiences I have had – especially recently (and it was free!) I applaud the festival and St. Vincent for giving such a lavish and extraordinary experience for free. It goes to show what I think the majority of the NXNE festival is about – getting people in the city involved in music. It makes people want to participate in the festival by displaying something so great and so accessible to the masses.