St. Vincent, Death Vessel, Ferraby Lionheart @ Cafe du Nord
Friday night I saw St. Vincent (myspace) with Death Vessel (myspace) and Ferraby Lionheart (myspace) at the Cafe du Nord.
Ferraby Lionheart was up first. He’s got some positive coverage from some of the music blogs and I’d liked what I’d heard of his enough to want to check him out. In the end, I liked the elements–good voice and guitar styling–but the songs weren’t engaging.
I’d seen Death Vessel once before, opening for Jose Gonzalez at Stanford. It may take one visit just to get used to him. Like Ferenby, he’s just a guy with a guitar, but the thing that throws you for a loop is that he has long hair and sings in a very high-pitched voice. It was sort of distracting the first time I saw him but this time I was able to just listen to the music more.
He plays in sort of an old-timey folk style, evoking the sound of the Anglo-American ballads like with a voice that’s sort of delicate and pretty pure. I liked it. The music doesn’t demand your attention, though, so the audience was plenty happy to talk over him.
After a bit of a delay, St. Vincent, the full band version (Annie Clark w/ a violinist, bassist/ keyboardist and a drummer). Her style is odd: eclectic and almost spastic in how quickly it goes from being a guitar and violin freak-out to a jazz standard-vibe. She was very entertaining to watch.
I also ran into some of the local blogeratti and notable local rock celebrities at the show:
- Dave Douglas and Ian Bjornstad of the John Vanderslice band
- Aaron and Nate of cameraphonic
- Emily of the Deli SF
