Guest review by Paste contributor Aaron Belz (who also happens to be a friend from my undergrad days at Covenant College):
JOHN VANDERSLICE w/ST. VINCENT
Date: May 2, 8 p.m.
Venue: The Billiken Club, St. Louis, Mo.
For those of us who have a long history of going to shows with our friends and staying up too late, drinking and smoking, laughing, talking, and listening to more music—gluttons that we are—memory has a way of fusing together. We don’t remember the venues clearly. We hardly recall the people we’ve danced with, flirted with, the combat boots that have kicked our head in the mosh pit, or the vast amount of real talent and superficial showmanship with which we’ve shared a dimly lit room.
Occasionally, though, there’s a moment of epiphany. It becomes one of the few mental images that we don’t forget. Such a moment happened for the 100 or so people who came to see John Vanderslice in St. Louis on a rainy night.
The venue was a food court at Saint Louis University, rigged to appear as a nightclub, though the occasional unbussed plastic cafeteria tray was a dead giveaway. Students, faculty, and bearded rock ‘n’ roll faithful filtered into the room, grabbing dollar drafts at a bar in the atrium, nestling into restaurant booths, congregating around café tables. Although it was a free concert, the room was not full.
After the lights dimmed a petite brunette—wearing a bow-embellished white blouse—took the stage, guitar in hand. Her wide brown eyes and nervous smile made her look a bit like Audrey Tautou in Amelie. She was Annie Clark, touring under the name St. Vincent. [On her way to a Four To Watch section very soon. — ed.] Saintly she was. With an electric guitar, two mics (one filtered through a vocoder), and a kickbox, she filled the room with gritty, blues-inspired songs about love and betrayal. Lots of love. Bloody betrayal. She said she was from Texas: “It’s near here. We’re family, right?” In one silent moment after the applause faded, a small male voice could be heard to say, “I love you.” Another: “Awkward.”
After Clark’s set, institutional fluorescent lights came back up for fifteen minutes while John Vanderslice, perhaps the most inauspicious rocker ever, walked up to the stage, then back through the crowd to the goodies table, stopping to chat with clusters of young people along the way. Someone said, “Does he look like Dana Carvey?” The response was,
“Naa. Well, sort of.” When finally he got on stage and threw his guitar strap over his shoulder, pick in mouth, the lights dimmed again.
The set sounded a bit like Wilco—clear vocals over melodic chord-based pop, but with just enough jangly weirdness to give it authenticity. The crowd didn’t respond as noisily to Vanderslice, perhaps because in the endless progression of shifting chords, they felt lulled into another dimension. A kind of aural purgatory, where the music never ends. This
was threatening to turn into another one of those concerts—girls leaning their heads on their boyfriends’ shoulders—everybody swaying—marked only by trips to the bathroom.
“I’m gonna sing a few more songs and then invite a special guest to sing with me.” Vanderslice had a glimmer in his eye. The guest was Lucas. Lucas who? Lucas turned out to be a younger singer with a clarion-clear voice who also played mandolin. He must have been local, because his arrival summoned a huge cheer. The show was beginning to open up. Then Vanderslice invited Annie Clark back up to the stage, and the two sang in harmony. Clark looked intently at Vanderslice to follow his lead, appearing more and more beautiful as the set continued. The show was opening further.
“We need to go outside,” Vanderslice finally announced. Everybody stood there. “No, I’m serious. Let’s take this show outside. I’m bringing my guitar.” Audience members looked at each other—not only was this unconventional, especially at a rather straightlaced Jesuit university in the Midwest, but it was raining outside. “We can smoke out there,” Vanderslice added. Everybody filed outside to a grassy area in between buildings, an area wet with mud. One girl slipped and squealed. “You should have worn heels,” said her friend, whose heels had sunk into the ground.
The drummer, who had brought with him a large bass drum and a pair of padded, marching band-style sticks, kneeled on the ground. Vanderslice slung an acoustic guitar over his shoulder, and Clark stood equidistant from them as the audience tightened into a cautious circle. The drummer began to beat a slow, deep rhythm. “You know that guy who stole your girlfriend in the summer of ‘95?” Vanderslice began singing; “he’s going to die.” Some smiles; a nervous few laughs. The song was about revenge, it seemed. Then, with Clark adding a layer of eerie harmony: “You know her name sits in your brain like a tumor—eyes still shine in your memory—she’s going to die.” More uncertain laughter. Huh? Nearly midnight, a heavy mist falling, and this odd music. This unusual occasion.
The song continued, now accompanied by guitar:
Well you can carry that grudge
or you can let it go,
but as sure as I’m singing this song, you know
she’s going to die, she’s going to die.
Five’ll get you ten, so just let it go,
that she and he and i will hear the final chord—
just let it go, let it go, we’re going to die.
Vanderslice kept singing “We’re going to die,” his voice becoming fainter along with Clark’s, then the music ending and the drum fading out, painfully slowly. The crowd erupted, demading more. “Thank you for coming, everyone,” said Vanderslice and turned to head back inside. As it turned out that really was the end. One fan closed his cellphone, and the guy standing next to him said, simply, “YouTube it.”
Back inside, however, the response was more mixed. “Not exactly uplifting,” said one female student, a visitor from another university. “I mean, I get it, but it wasn’t uplifting.” Her friend said, “Unforgettable.” Elsewhere there was headshaking—words like “unbelievable” and “wow” floated in the air. Perhaps it came too soon after the Virginia Tech shooting—it was, after all, on a university campus. But it was a rock moment. It was awkward, beautiful, and it was the end of the show.
St. Louis writer Aaron Belz’s first book of poetry, The Bird Hoverer, came out in March. On May 19, he’ll graduate from SLU with a Ph.D. in American Literature. Find him online at Belz.net
Email
Leave a comment