“Don’t you sometimes go to a show and you just want to be pummelled?” Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent) posed this question to Esquire right before her seventh album, All Born Screaming, arrived in April. “With shows your job is to surprise, shock, delight, console, surprise, shock, delight, console, disgust, console,” she said, when asked if she planned on touring the record. At Palace Theatre on Thursday night — the first of two shows in St. Paul — Clark did exactly that. 

The historic theater was a fitting place for the Grammy-winning rock star's dramatic performance style. Major shock value came with Clark’s ability to push herself over the edge and give songs from across her catalog a monstrous energy. It can be difficult to categorize Clark’s genre tendencies. But the post-punk guitars with pop exterior from Masseduction, glam rock and intimate ballads from Daddy's Home, and noisy ’80s synthesizers and industrial rock from All Born Screaming  are all marked with intensity. 

Beneath blinding, flashing light on “Los Ageless,” the singer radiated anger by screeching and itching for catharsis. She sang about self-loathing with purposely exaggerated smiles on “Big Time Nothing” — as if playing the part of an over-the-top actress. For the glitchy electronic “Marrow,” she was palpably distressed, holding her head in her hands. The same urgent energy came from the dystopian “Fear the Future.” 

While the thumping bass made the floor vibrate, Clark shook her guitar with uncontrollable force on “Cheerleader,” and sang about the desire to leave a significant other. The message came in contrast to that of “Broken Man,” about a longingly to stay with someone. “Lover, nail yourself right to me / If you go, I won't be well / I can hold my arms wide open / But I need you to drive the nail,” she sang as she flashed a fake smile, hissed into the microphone, and thrashed her limbs as if fighting an invisible assailant. The act continued with seductive poses on the sultry, funky “Dilettante,” prefaced with, “I wrote this next song in a little city kind of like St. Paul, except I think there was a lot more GHB there.” 

Given the intense execution of songs, it was a surprise to hear Clark’s gentle words to the audience in between songs. She gave a tender introduction of her bandmates — Robert Ellis on guitar, Rachel Eckroth on keys, Mark Guiliana on drums, and Charlotte Kemp Muhl on bass and synthesizers — calling them skilled composers and songwriters. 

With a look of awe, she shared a story about “a hero and a legend of this area.” Years ago, before a show in New York, the first on a new tour, a manager ran to tell Clark that Prince was coming to the show. She was immediately shocked and nervous. Gesturing to the theater's balcony, Clark said Prince sat in the crow’s nest with eyes on her the whole night. 

Then the artist reflected on the Twin Cities itself. “I remember the first time I came to this beautiful state. It was the 7th St Entry,” she said. “Next time I came, I played at the 7th St Entry. But the third time I came to this beautiful city…” she continued before someone yelled, “Mainroom!” She corrected them: “It was at 7th St.” 

Moments of delight arose when Clark displayed her virtuoso instrumentalism. Rolling Stone magazine once aptly named her the 26th Greatest Guitarist of All Time. “Krokodil” showed rapid and intricate technique that appeared effortless. Plus, occasional affection lit up in “Sweetest Fruit” when Clark meditated in cinematic art-pop. 

The urge to disgust that Clark mentioned was also occasionally present. In “Flea,” the eerie track about desire and infatuation as a skin-crawling infestation, Clark sang, “I'm just like a hungry little flea / Jumping on somebody's warm body / When you start to itch and scratch and scream / Once I'm in, you can't get rid of me.” Then in the horror and chaos of “Pay Your Way in Pain” the singer rolled her hips, simultaneously in seduction and mental anguish, and hocked some spit toward the camera man on stage. Her intentions were unclear. 

To console the room near the end of her potent performance, Clark entered the crowd for “New York.” (She struggled to get onto the barricade, and not wanting to make an assisting venue staff member uncomfortable, Clark said: “I don’t need to hit on your head. You can just set me down”). Once in the pit, she continually said “hi” to people without missing a word in the verses. 

“Sometimes you need to give people a kick in the teeth,” she told Esquire. “And sometimes you need to tell people that everything is going to be okay.” Nowhere was this more evident than in the closing track, “All Born Screaming.” The lyrics repeat the song’s title, and offer comfort by articulating the communal experience of pain. Clark won’t compromise artistic integrity in the name of consoling an audience for the whole ride. To receive the generosity of her sometimes soothing nature, fans need to sit with the shock and disgust that comes with delight. 

Dorian Electra opened the show with their campy stage persona, consisting of seductive moves, sexual lyrics, and choreographed backup dancers. The experimental pop artist dove into hardcore on “Freak Mode” and industrial house music on “M’Lady.” Heavy fizzing bass and pre-recorded vocals on the backing track covered their own live voice often, but Electra’s act is more about using movement to expand their saucy lyrics. Take the sexual innuendo on “Phonies” and suggestive lyrics on “Sodom & Gomorrah,” which Electra prefaced with, “Is anyone feeling horny tonight?” They also challenged gender binaries and the taboo of platonic male intimacy on “Sorry Bro (I Love You)” and “Man to Man.” Electra offered consolation to some in the crowd by singing, “Man to man, hand to hand / One on one, friend to friend,” and asking, “Are you man enough to soften up? / Are you tough enough to open up?”

St. Vincent

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Dorian Electra

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Setlist

Reckless

Fear the Future

Los Ageless

Big Time Nothing

Marrow

Dilettante

Pay Your Way in Pain

Digital Witness

Sweetest Fruit

Flea

Cheerleader

Broken Man

Krokodil

Hell Is Near

Candy Darling

New York 

Sugarboy

All Born Screaming

Encore

Somebody Like Me