Video: St. Vincent’s cover of “Dig A Pony” @ Great American Music Hall
About 8 years ago I was hanging out with the cats in the magazine section of Berkeley’s Pegasus Books, when a magazine cover caught my eye. I wish I could remember which indie music mag it was, but unfortunately over the years I’ve forgotten. The woman pictured on the cover was so striking and had such an interesting style that I ended up reading the article about her. This was my first exposure to St. Vincent (or Annie Clark).
When I got home, I immediately went to her MySpace page and started listening to all of her songs. “Marry Me” had come out the year before and many of the songs from that album were uploaded to her player. Never hearing anything like her music before, I didn’t get it at first. Eventually I listened to more and more of it and she quickly became my favorite artist and still is to this day.
My first time seeing St. Vincent perform was a few months after the magazine sighting at the Great American Music Hall during the 2009 Noise Pop Music Festival. She put on a one-woman show, switching between a guitar with a pedal board and her keyboard. I was grinning from ear to ear during her whole set—it was so magical seeing her up on stage producing all of the percussion, vocals and instrumentals of her songs by herself. Plus, she seemed as impressed by the audience as we were by her. This show is by far my favorite St. Vincent show as well as my all time favorite show. I’ve seen her at least 7 or 8 times at this point. (Top three shows of all time include Paul McCartney at Outside Lands and Kelly Clarkson at the Shoreline Amphitheater.)
Anyway, all this just to say THANK YOU to the person who recorded footage of St. Vincent singing “Dig a Pony” during this show in the video above. Somehow I’d never heard the song before seeing her sing it, but she did such a great, raw, sultry version of it that I still go back and listen to it every so often. If you haven’t heard her sing it before, give it a listen and if you like it, go check out her other stuff, too. Her lyrics are poetry and her music is full of angelic melodies floating over grungy guitar riffs and dance beats (depending on the album).