Missing the Visit of St. Vincent
Nov 3rd, 2009 by Donagh
Sinéad Gleeson, through twitter, said the following yesterday:
Grizzly Bear + St. Vincent = Gig of the year.
Great, my tastes have coincided with Sinéad’s enough times for me to be fairly sure I have indeed missed the gig of the year. Now, I’m not too gutted that I didn’t catch Grizzly Bear. Much as I like the recent critically acclaimed album Veckatimest I don’t tend to go back to it that often these days. Annie Erin Clark or St. Vincent, however, is an entirely different prospect.
After listening to this snippet, once again thanks to CONOR Talbot of Handbob Films, I wrecked my toe kicking every available piece of furniture I could find.
This is a nice version of Knife by Grizzly Bear
This is my favorite track from her 2009 album Actor
Thanks to foeweel for the mp3. There’s plenty more Grizzly Bear on Conor’s YouTube channel.
Great singer. I heard her perform Marrow with her full band earlier on this year and it was, quite honestly, the best live tune that I have heard since Matt Beringer sang Mr. November whilst an Olympia crowd carried him shoulder-high around the floor a couple of years ago!
Which, by genuine happy coincidence, was the first time that I ever heard a certain A. Clark of Texas sing! Funny old world.
Who’s Matt Beringer? Okay, I did search…The National eh? Never heard of their music, although I’ve heard the name….(searches music folder on his hard-drive. Finds The National album Boxer….inserts into music playing app…listens. Oh, his voice has a certain distinctive baritone….(toes feels urge to tap to music as it builds nicely on Fake Empire…notices the trumpet bit with pleasure)…..yes, I like it. Thanks Longman Oz, appreciate that.
Thanks for that on Marrow too. Nice to know what I missed
I give up on this Grizzly Bear thing. I’ve gone back to listen to them a bunch of times on the basis that loads of people with whose musical taste I usually agree are raving about them. Last night I listened to Veckatimist on the way into town, but I give up. I just don’t hear anything remarkable at all. It’s usually a bad sign when people rave about some band, but always point to one particular song. Yeah, Two Weeks is nice and all, but the rest of it passed me by. Sorry, I’ve tried, and apart from that one song, I just don’t hear anything memorable or different there at all. Grizzy Bear, your numerous second chances are over.
No need to say sorry. I think their problem is that they go to such extraordinary lengths to sound both pleasant and interesting and are so successful at it that they make something which is easy to let just drift by you. They remind me a bit of Mercury Rev. They used to sound interesting when their music was a mess, but once they became more polished and artful - using Prokofiev and what have you - I just got bored. It was just around the time that people started to rave about them that I stopped listening.
I agree with Jim. Mood music for taking a dump, if you ask me, which you didn’t, but anyway.
Donagh, it was pretty special. I totally understand that some people don’t get the GB albums, but I think they’re a band to be seen live. The songs just seemed more affecting, more layered in a gig setting.
I think Annie’s song ‘Marrow’ is amazing. It’s very different tempo-wise to a lot of what she does (particularly compared to a lot of the first album, Marry Me) and playing on her own - as she did in Dublin - means she had to be very inventive in reproducing some of the songs. I love when you go to a gig and the songs sound really different to the album. It’s dull when someone just recreates a CD verbatim.
I was brought backstage to meet her afterwards and she was on her own, working on a new song in Garageband on her Macbook! Dedication…
Thanks for that Sinéad. I thought the Grizzly Bear song above suggested that they were worth seeing live. Sounds like a wonderful gig.
I think what is appealing to me in hearing her in those circumstance is that its kind of like hearing the songs when they were first written, without arrangements or effects. But it also brings the songs back to life for you too, as it shows there are more ideas there.
Nice insight on level to dedication. At a Henry Rollins spoken word show once he admitted after a gig the band members usually go back to the book they were reading before they went on stage.
their clay animation vids are cool