Call it the miracle of proximity. David Byrne and St. Vincent, selling an album, Love This Giant, I actively dislike, metamorphosed a handful of fairly lousy songs into a brilliant concert experience with crisp, smart versions, an eight piece brass band, and elegantly choreographed set pieces. It was mind over music, it was the magician of skill over substance. A shocker on Wednesday, the second night of a two night stand.The odd couple at the center, artist errant Byrne, and Polyphonic art rock Annie Clark (who goes by the name of St. Vincent, though not when David is announcing her), would seem to share only a certain obtuseness. Byrne has grown into this World Music dilettante pop artists, and Annie a miserable chick indie Brooklyn serio-musico. But look a little bit closer and you will notice that they are similar types. They could both sub for Timothy Hutton in "Ordinary People" no questions asked. On stage, Byrne moves in a robotic, strident, marshall "same as it ever was" choppiness, Annie is a twitchy electro shocker in miniskirt. They fit together between arm movements and musically, they have managed to create a brass band sound that doesn't swing. It is so arch, it is about to crack but it sounds different than everything, and if the recording is too tense for its own good, on stage the discipline is a type of release.
Or, to paraphrase David Byrne, referencing their best song, last song before the encore, so they figured it out as well, "Outside Of Space And Time", it is strange and charming.
The giveaway is a song I really can't listen to at all, "I Am An Ape". An unbearable dirge with a chorus which makes me want to punch holes in walls. Ye, even this song is listenable on stage.
On song after song there is a four way intersection, not dances but marches by the seven members of the brass section, including trombone, tuba, piccolo, dancing between and around Byrne and Clarke. Sometimes Byrne is on the sideline, sometimes he almost disappears entirely,mostly Annie is front and center, playing against elongated shadows on the walls. They play the album, and choice cuts from their solo career. Talking Heads "Burning Down The House" is added very little by the arrangement, but his "Like Humans Do" off Look Into The Eyeball fits in seamlessly. Byrne takes off his jacket and in white pants and suspenders, David does look like a lawyer from the deep South, if he ever puts on weight he'd be welcome on nearly any John Grisham set. But the point of the version, actually the point of every thing here, is using horns for other means. And the rearrangement is inspire, it is great.
Oddly, the other Talking Heads cover, "Road to Nowhere", last song of the night, is also a bit blah-y. As a sendoff into the night, it was more rousing in concept than in execution.
As for Annie. Well, for one thing she is a lot prettier than I thought, and for another thing she has a sense of human and for a third, despite her strange charm, neither she nor Byrne have a heaviness to them. This lightness can be unbearable, "The Party' was the wrong song in the wrong place, but otherwise, she got everything she could out of the performance. The night's best moment, an apocalyptic "Northern Lights" belonged to her, and that, along with one of the few times it really felt like a songwriting collaboration, "The One Who Broke Your Heart" more than anything showed why it was such a successful show.
For all its artifacts, it was was light on its feet. For all the Military directness of its beats (I would have loved to hear their take on "Take Me To The River") it bounces. And for all its professionalism it seemed to be constantly stretching. It was good humored and because of that, the stilted brusqueness on record is bypassed.
Grade: A-