Annie Clark is the amazing brain behind St. Vincent.
Annie and her band are currently touring for their self-titled new album and I was lucky enough to see the show at the historic Fox Theater in Oakland, California.
It was absolutely phenomenal.
At the end of the show, Annie walked off stage after flinging herself around during "Krokodil." The stage goes black and stays black, concert speak for "encore is coming."
Why have we come to expect encores from every artist that plays live? Crowds at shows like St. Vincent's stand expectedly after the main set waiting for more. We stand there and wait for the band to come back on and do what is expected of them. We're entitled, really. An encore is part of what we paid for.
This wasn't always how it worked. The encore used to be reserved for audiences that longed to hear an amazing song again because recorded music didn't exist. And even after recorded music was available, concert goers would sometimes refuse to leave a venue until the band delivered more music. These days, the suspense has been drained from encores. They are an expected part of every show and artists build the extra music into their sets because the lights have to be timed with the music.
Back to the St. Vincent encore: Annie's guitar strums, the crowd screams and the spotlight comes up. She’s the only one on stage and she sings in her small voice, “Oh little One . . .”
Everyone in the whole venue stops and listens.
