' How did you become what you visibly are? asks the painter.
I am as I am. I'm waiting, replies the mountain or the mouse or the child.
What for?
For you, if you abandon everything else.
For how long?
For as long as it takes.
There are other things in life.
Well, find them and be more normal.
And If I don't?
I'll give you what I've given nobody else, but it's worthless, it's simply the answer to your useless question.
Useless?
I am as I am.
No promise more than that?
None. I can wait forever.
I'd like a normal life.
Live it and don't count on me.
And if I do count on you?
Forget everything and in me you'll find - me!
The collaboration which sometimes follows is seldom based on good will: more usually on desire, rage, fear, pity or longing. The modern illusion concerning painting (which post-modernism has done nothing to correct) is that the artist is a creator. Rather he is a receiver. What seems like creation is the act of giving form to what he has received.'
Tonight’s gig was an event I had been looking forward to for quite some time. Naturally there were complications with London transport, and naturally I found myself doing that business commuter-esque half-run-half-walk mode of travelling down City Road, index finger wedged into page 39 of my mini A-Z, navigating my way from Old Street tube to the Barbican. Once I had treated myself to an overpriced dark rum and coke (the price of which I forgave because the lady who served me was so pleasant) I found myself walking into the auditorium of the Barbican theatre, a beautiful example of 1960s architecture with its jigsaw of wooden panels providing the most breathtaking and tear jerking acoustics when the music is at its most sublime, and my God, tonight’s musicians certainly did the building justice and fitted hand in glove into the atmosphere created by an autumnal Halloween in London.
St Vincent, aka Annie Clark, is a most beautiful specimen of the female species with a voice so fragile in places and soaring in others. Tonight her tiny frame is presented in an elegant black cocktail dress, and her hair a mass of black curls frames a delicate pale face complimented by a sumptuous mouth painted in shock red. She stands in the middle of a stage surrounded by patient and silent instruments with what looks like her best friend on guitar. The scene is reminiscent of a private rehearsal that we should not be witnessing, and her personal confessions and private thoughts in song are impressive, intertwined with an obvious passion for exploring the capabilities of her sampler, guitar and 
drum machine. Layering and harmonising with her own vocals on such tracks as ‘Party’ is something one hears often from singer songwriters, but one cannot help but be seduced by the sounds that she creates and the sweetness of such lyrics as ‘I stare transfixed at a hole in your t-shirt’. A common theme with what St Vincent do and what Grizzly Bear do this evening is maximise on the filmic, the poignant, the romantic and the sublime, and when Annie says towards the end of her set that we should prepare to have our jaws dropped, I want to let her know that we already have.
After a short recovery period the lights dim and on walk the 4 understated guys known as Grizzly Bear, with their new friends, the mass of folk known as the London Symphony Orchestra. The strains of strings tuning up are soon followed with a familiar melancholic sound that is the trademark of the band. The printed material that accompanied tonight’s performance stated that Grizzly Bear were keen to avoid the ‘
band with added strings’ type outcome that is all too common with such collaborations, and instead re arrange the songs in a way that allows the orchestra to actually collaborate, not just compliment. Did they achieve this? Well, mostly. The magic of the twinkly sounds created by pianos and flutes and strings that reminded me of Disney’s Fantasia worked wonders at the beginning of ‘Fine for Now’, and the sweeping strings and drama that the orchestra produced was moving and impressive. But ultimately it was the vocals of Ed Droste that really twisted and knotted the heart, almost operatic in parts and so beautiful that to hear it on CD truly does not do the music justice. And how refreshing to hear harmonies that are in tune live, and so moving. I closed my eyes to listen to ‘All We Ask’, in my view the highlight of their album Veckatimest, a wonderful arrangement of harmonies and strings, with the closing repeating refrain of ‘I can’t get out of what I’m into with you’, and it almost makes me cry. Other highlights obviously include the band’s most famous song Two Weeks and their rendition of the Crystal’s He hit me (and it felt like a kiss).
The performance came to an end and a standing ovation eschewed. I left the auditorium and walked among the mass of high rise flats and concrete in the dark and cold, alone. The reflections of golden streetlights staining the concrete roads, and only the sound of distant traffic to keep me company. I love how the senses are heightened when you are alone. Warm, fuzzy and inspired inside, it was only when I found the bright lights of Old Street and its mass of fake blood adorning drunkards that I woke up to reality and headed for the nearest Burger King, before catching the last train back to suburbia.
St. Vincent's Setlist:
Marry Me
Jesus
Actor
OMG
Save Me
Party
Marrow
What Me Worry
Grizzly Bear Setlist:
