Under a twilight sky ceiling in Melbourne, the darkness lifted for an hour and a half to reveal a goddess of nighttime supremacy – St. Vincent.
Before the witching hour began, local indie outfit Telenova washed the room in ethereal blues, gracing the stage under the drama of the Forum's sparkling ceiling (27 November).Angeline Armstrong, who heads up Telenova (along with Edward Quinn and Joshua Moriarty), danced her way across the expanse of music.
Her silhouette cast shadows of disco into the curtains, fabric draped across her arms in dreamlike colour to create the kind of shapes that complement the alt-pop dance floor visions she was curating. A band that has been dubbed as 'cinema for your ears', it's perhaps the perfect way to describe the trio's sonic world they've crafted.
'Bones', Telenova's 2021 debut single, soared like a nightmarish lullaby under the blanket of night sky and chandeliers. Armstrong's vocals wrapped the room in a whirlwind, the music cascaded like summer rain.
Telenova cut through the haze of the smoke machines as if through the mist of a city-gripping fog. From dream-pop fairy to art-rock witch, high time came and the main course was served.
Anne Clark aka St. Vincent burst out of the shadows and the room came alive. Being the final performance in a string of three Melbourne shows – each at a different venue – the stars of the Forum's ceiling night sky must have aligned just so for punters to get the opportunity to see her play here. There's perhaps no other venue in the city whose drama of its architecture pairs as perfectly with St. Vincent's own.
St. Vincent - image © Brett Schewitz
St. Vincent is no stranger to the stage – that much was obvious. She's been releasing music for over 20 years now, her first project an EP in 2003 when she was at college with fellow Berklee students under the name Ratsliveonnoevilstar. Her debut album as St. Vincent, 'Marry Me', was released in 2007.
This show, however, only marked the second ever time she'd graced this very stage. The last time she was under that nighttime ceiling sky, she told us, was when she was "wearing wings, still a virgin and playing with Sufjan Stevens". Now, she's back, and it's all about St. Vincent.
Theatrics adorned the set and drama was all around. She threw herself across the stage, into the audience, into her bandmates. The violence was poetic because her control of it was all-encompassing.
At times, it was like she was dancing and singing and telling stories in her living room to a dinner party of (band)mates. We just happened to be there too. Making the 2,000-person capacity of the Forum feel intimate is no small feat, but St. Vincent is nothing if not a true professional. We were in clearly capable hands.
Tracks from her latest album, 'All Born Screaming', were threaded throughout the set with songs from her back catalogue, like the beloved 'New York'. The show was also threaded with a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears.
St. Vincent - image © Brett Schewitz
Whether it was knocking her mic off the stand with her forehead, standing on someone's shoulders at the barrier and being pulled into the crowd by a tad-too-aggressive fan, or crowd surfing atop strangers' hands across the general standing area for almost the entirety of a song, the show wasn't in short supply of its physicality.
As abruptly as it began, it all ended and the lights half came up. After minutes and minutes of applause and cheers and the stomping of feet like an earthquake shaking the shoulders of this historic building, St. Vincent – of course – came back.
"I feel like I'm singing with Michelangelo," she remarked, motioning to the dramatics of the venue's interior. She thanked us, she sang once more, and then – as if by magic – she was gone.
- written by Juliette Salom
