Folk Fest: St. Vincent wows the crowd
St. Vincent plays the Calgary Folk Fest. Photo by Kelsey Hipkin
By Kelsey Hipkin
If you haven’t read the books or seen the movies, the Twilight series features a family of beautiful vampires named the Cullen’s. Pale and beautiful with a lovely voice, St. Vincent lead singer Annie Clark could easily be mistaken by Twi-Hards to be a member of the Cullen family (and was even featured on the New Moon soundtrack); but for the crowd at the Folk Fest on July 25, Clark was anything but vampiric as the band put on a great show.
“It’s very nice to be here, it’s a beautiful place with beautiful weather,” Clark said.
The grounds in front of the main-stage were packed with blankets and tarps of faithful festival goers as Clark and company played tunes such as “Marrow”, “Paris is Burning” and “Your Lips are Red”.
Clark’s haunting soprano paired with the usual bass, guitar and drums but also coupled with violin, flute and woodwinds made for a magical combination among the sunshine and trees at the Prince’s Island Park venue.
St. Vincents lyrics in songs like “Your Lips are Red”, “My face is drawn, my face is drawn on with this number 2 pencil. Your face is drawn, your face is drawn from drawing words right from my lips,” show a complexity and simplicity all at the same time that makes for a winning combination.
St. Vincent engaged the crowd with their music as well as Clark chatting with the audience every couple of songs.
“I have not yet been to Calgary,” the Texas native said.
“People have told me Calgary is the Texas of Canada,” she added saying that Calgarians might not like the comparison but she thought it was a good thing.
It will be also be a good thing for Calgarians if St. Vincent returns to Cowtown soon.
