By Cass Hyde

From the outset, it was clear that St Vincent’s performance at Manchester’s O2 Apollo was going to be divisive. Despite widespread critical acclaim, her new album Masseduction has a vocal minority of fans lamenting her move away from avant-garde art-rock to a more pop-orientated landscape. More divisive, however, is her new live show. With no live band, St Vincent (aka Annie Clark) performs with a backing track, providing live vocals and guitar over the top. Some have called this move brilliant, others have dismissed it as lazy, calling it ‘karaoke’.

Backing tracks, however, can work in live shows and shouldn’t necessarily be brushed off as some sort of cop-out. In 1984, Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads released the legendary concert film Stop Making Sense. The film opens with Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrne walking up to a microphone with a guitar in one hand and a boombox in the other. He says, “Hi! I’ve got a tape I want to play,” before launching into the classic acoustic version of ‘Psycho Killer’, complete with an 808 backing track.

The point is, what’s the difference between St Vincent’s new show and this? Before anyone says the difference is that Byrne performed one song and Clark an entire show, if David Byrne did a full length ‘karaoke’ show, people would gleefully lap it up. Here, the backing track absolutely works in St Vincent’s favour.

The show itself was split up into two sets: the first half old, the second half new. The first set consisted of tracks from her previous four albums, backed up with new arrangements. Delicate songs such as ‘Marry Me’ and ‘Strange Mercy’ were overlapped with beautiful new string quartet arrangements. A nice moment also came from the new version of the austere ‘The Strangers’. Choral voices and piano, combined with strumming power chords, took something ethereal and turned it into a loud and twisted hymn.

One of the best parts about this first set was the sense that it was building up to something. Everything was done with purpose and intent. The show started off with Clark performing side stage, moving closer and closer to centre stage with every song. When she finally moved to the centre, a giant cartoon backdrop descended , featuring St Vincent with wild hair and serpentine slits for nostrils. At this point, the set went fully electronic. ‘Digital Witness’ became a tight, electro-pop romp. ‘Rattlesnake’ took a darker turn, becoming faster, and more industrial: a dance track for a dystopian future.

Yet, all these electronics were done with intent. After a quick intermission, the backdrop was replaced with a giant screen, and St Vincent quickly launched into playing the electro heavy Masseduction in full. A highlight of this second set was the title track. It saw everything come together. It had killer riffs, claustrophobic electronics and an excellent queer hook (“I can’t turn off what turns me on!”). All of this took place to a video backdrop of a phone made of cake slowing being smashed into pieces. Here, St Vincent clearly demonstrated that she was as weird as she ever was.

This second half, however, wasn’t without its more intimate moments. Another highpoint was the performance of ‘Happy Birthday Johnny’. Clark sung with sorrow about ‘Johnny’, an old friend who had fallen on hard times, all overlayed with broken piano chords and beautiful pedal steel guitar.

If there were any faults with the show, it was that one or two of the arrangements for her older material didn’t quite work. ‘Actor Out Of Work’, for instance, was turned from a duel between two guitars to a more percussive, yet, somehow, flatter version. This could easily have been swapped for a different song, one more suited to a solo rearrangement. Regardless, this rearrangement was still interesting – just not great.

Overall, the main impression is that the show sees Clark as an auteur: someone creative enough and confident enough to try something that, on paper, probably shouldn’t work. Except it absolutely does. With every new album, St Vincent seems to have a card up her sleeve, putting herself one step ahead of everyone else. And as a live performer? She’s a wonder to behold!