Only two shows today. Should have been more, but for one little thing: St Vincent.
- Tombola, traversing the unknown
- Dreamers – Michael Rother and Dieter Moebius and Hans Lampe
The kraut-rock of Rother and friends was fantastic – solid grooves that drag you into their rhythm and then just keep going and going and going. And then I managed to re-meet an old Uni mate of mine, who I hadn’t seen in over fifteen years… great stuff! :)
But St Vincent… oh my.
While the gathered crowd seemed most familiar with one of my least favourite songs – Cruel – Annie and her band (drummer with an odd double-kick, double-snare, double-hi-hat setup, a young lass on a Moog playing basslines and backing vocals, and a keyboard player) put in a stunner of a set. Stuff from Strange Mercy (which has sat next to my speakers, criminally under-listened, for months now) dominated, but there was still the bludgeoning ascension of Black Rainbow and Marrow to placate the Actor fans… and then came Your Lips Are Red.
Now, that song has always been a little bit special to me – it’s blunt and cold and abrasive up front, but dissolves into the sweetest “your skin’s so fair it’s not fair / you remind me of city graffiti” refrain at the end that I just well up with tears. So to be standing mere metres from Annie when she moulded that gorgeous ending out of noise tonight – in a manner that exceeded this wonderful rendition – was a proper teary emotional moment.
And after experiencing something like that, I wasn’t really in the mood for seeing anything else. Hence, a “quiet” day.