Concert Review: St. Vincent Is Here To Remind New Haven What It Means To Be Alive
“Like, what are you looking at? Well, who the hell do you think I am?”
In an industry that rewards the predictable, Annie Clark – better known as St. Vincent – has built her empire on the art of surprise. She’s a modern outlaw in the music industry, a shapeshifter, a restless innovator who has spent the past two decades twisting rock, pop, and electronic music into strange, beautiful new shapes, always chasing the next frontier of the musical landscape.
It’s a legacy she’s built standing on the shoulders of rebels: David Byrne, Nick Cave, genre renegades who didn’t just play music but ripped it apart and stitched it back together into something unique and new. Clark’s obsession with music runs deeper than career or fame; it’s a devotion, a need to keep pushing until the whole structure cracks open.
Her latest project, the Grammy-award winning All Born Screaming, finds her more fearless than ever: a blistering collection of songs that tears down and rebuilds with feral urgency. It’s the sound of an artist who has stopped asking permission, who knows that true innovation lives in the uncomfortable spaces. Survival sits at the core of it – not just scraping by, but clawing out meaning from the chaos, refusing to go quietly. It’s an album about creation and destruction, about making noise simply because being alive demands it. It’s survival music. A baptism by fire.
And on a sold-out Tuesday night at College Street Music Hall, Clark brought that fire to life – a full-scale detonation. The kind that leaves your ears ringing and your skin buzzing, wondering what the hell just hit you – and when you can feel it again.
Expelling from the darkness with bright flashes of light, Clark arrived standing dead still, lit from behind like a ghost. She opened with “Reckless,” a track from All Born Screaming that felt almost too raw to touch, delivering it with a cold, robotic precision that sent a shiver through the room. The stillness wasn’t hesitation; it was control, the kind of unnerving calm before the world splits open. Around her, the stage glowed in stark white light, making her seem less like a performer and more like a specter at the edge of the end times. The air felt a bit heavier, and like the rest of the attendees, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
Then the dam broke. Still riding the cold, post-apocalyptic energy of the opener, Clark launched into “Fear the Future” and “Los Ageless,” a whiplash turn that hit the crowd like a lit match to gasoline. The lighting exploded into frantic strobes and blistering stage-wide floods, bathing everything in chaos and color. It felt like the floor shifted under your feet. The crowd – already tense, already wired – erupted into movement, screaming back the words like an exorcism. Every flash of light revealed faces wide-eyed, sweating, laughing – people barely keeping up with the storm Clark was unleashing.
With her guitar slung across her shoulder like an extension of her body, she moved through the chaos with a kind of effortless cool that made it impossible to look away. But it wasn’t just her presence or the precision of the performance that stuck with me – it was the way you could feel the care in every detail. The lighting, the pacing, the sound – all of it felt designed not just to impress, but to connect. There was a quiet kindness that echoed underneath it all, a generosity in how much she gave to the audience. She was, without a doubt, the coolest person in the room, but never in a way that made anyone feel lesser. It felt like she wanted to bring us into her world, not keep us out. And by the end of the night, we were all fully in it.
That sense of connection didn’t stop at the crowd, it was all over the stage, too. The chemistry between Clark and her bandmates was undeniable, almost dangerous in the best way. Especially with guitarist Robert Ellis and bassist Charlotte Kemp Muhl, there was this magnetic, almost telepathic pull. During “Birth in Reverse” and “Pay Your Way In Pain,” Clark would drop to her knees in front of them, guitar slung low, trading energy like sparks flying off a live wire. They played off each other with a wildness that felt totally unscripted – laughing, locking eyes, leaning in like they were daring each other to take it further. It wasn’t just tight musicianship; it was real trust, real joy.
Between songs, Clark let her guard down and showed off her dry yet sweet, offbeat sense of humor. “You were all babies once, but we somehow came to converge on this night,” she mused, grinning into the mic like she was letting us in on some private joke about fate. Later, she playfully debated the finer points of pronunciation – “Should it be NEW Haven or New HAVEN?” – cracking up the crowd and giving the night a looseness that made the heavy moments hit even harder.
Later in the set, Flea, Big Time Nothing, and Violent Times cracked the energy wide open in their own ways. On Flea, Clark leaned into the weirdness, letting the song’s slippery, off-kilter pulse take over. Big Time Nothing felt like a release valve – all sharp edges and sneering defiance, a reminder that sometimes noise is the only way through the static. And Violent Times was a slow burn, heavy and unsteady, like standing still while the world crumbles a little at a time. None of it felt easy or pretty, but that was the point. Each track explored what it means to be alive, to fight, to scream, even when the world feels like it’s tilting off its axis.
As the night surged forward, the highlights kept stacking up. Her guitar solo during “Marrow” was pure fire – distorted, jagged, almost savage – a reminder that beneath the pristine production and clever songwriting, Clark is still a shredder at heart. Later, during “New York,” her approach to stage diving was almost delicate, like she was testing gravity rather than defying it. It wasn’t a venue built for that kind of chaos, but she floated briefly into the crowd anyway, graceful and subtle, trusting the fans to catch her, and they did. The energy never dipped. If anything, it became more focused as the night reached its end.
She closed the main set with All Born Screaming, the title track from the 2024 album – a slow-burning, volcanic finale that felt like the emotional peak of the night, all catharsis and no restraint. And like the beginning, Clark closed the show in a stark wash of light, this time, a single spotlight, singing “Candy Darling” with soft clarity. The air had shifted; it was quieter, more reflective, like we were all being gently let down from something massive. A final bow that didn’t demand anything – it simply reminded us we had witnessed something rare.
For Annie Clark, it’s never just about putting on a good show, it’s about making something honest, something alive. She’s not playing into what’s popular or polished; she’s after what’s real, even if it’s messy or strange. All Born Screaming is built on that idea – that to be alive is to resist, to protest, to make noise simply because you can. Clark said it herself: “We’re all born in some ways against our will… but screaming is a sign you’re alive.” (NME) That theme echoed through every part of the night, in the way she commanded the stage, in the way the music cracked and burned, in the way the crowd held on to every moment. Watching her perform, you get the sense that she’s in this because she has to be – because creating, experimenting, pushing against the edges is wired into her. And with All Born Screaming, she’s clearly still searching, still evolving, still finding new ways to light the whole thing on fire. That’s what makes her work so special – it never feels safe. It feels necessary.
Click here to see more photos of St. Vincent at College Street Music Hall
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