St. Vincent shines at the Birmingham O2 Institute

O2 Institute, Birmingham, 28 June 2025

Sweat clings to the hairs on the back of my neck. It permeates through the air, merging with the fog and conversation. Maybe it’s a by-product of being in the middle of a heatwave; maybe St. Vincent is simply able to create balls of heat wherever she goes, packing them into concert venues. It feels unlikely, but then again, people around me view her as a form of guitar-playing deity. They’ve seen her multiple times on every tour she’s done, speaking about how they queued for hours to get a spot near the stage; the opening act, Cult of Venus, even concludes her set by saying it is “for Mother St. Vincent” with her hands in prayer.  While a slightly over-the-top gesture, there is an impact to it, amplifying the level of anticipation that is already at a fever pitch. It tips into overdrive when St. Vincent herself walks onto the stage.

Initially, it’s just her – no signature guitar in hand – just her voice reverberating around the room as she sings the first part of ‘Reckless’. The occasional noise made by the crowd is shushed as though they’re interrupting a church choir. Her vocals rise and build until it all comes crashing down in a wave of thrashing guitars and synth lines, eliciting screams from the crowd while setting a strong precedent for the show: something built around harsh, powerful guitars and synths, always on the edge of collapsing. As though the catharsis achieved from screaming the lyrics of ‘Flea’ will only go so far, that maybe at some point, something else will need to be given. A part of the self.

She climbs onto the speakers and sings to the top of the balconies

St. Vincent is aware of this, it’s why she’s dressed in an all-black outfit reminiscent of something from David Cronenberg’s Crash (1996), down to the ladder in her tights. She crawls around on stage, expertly playing guitar as she does. Intermittently, she’ll stare down the occasional member of the audience, burst out into screams or start to thrash around. Before starting the song ‘Broken Man’, St. Vincent crouches at the front of the stage, fixated on a few people in the front row as she shouts, “What are you looking at?” over and over. She climbs onto the speakers and sings to the top of the balconies. During ‘New York’, a relatively stripped-back ode to lost love in a wide, expansive space, she reaches into the crowd, hands outstretched, grabbing onto them for both stability and a means of connection as she sings “Well, you’re the only motherfucker in the city who can handle me”.

Despite this somewhat lacklustre reception from the crowd, St. Vincent’s All Born Screaming show is a display of someone at the peak of her creative capabilities 

For all the dedication to this persona that St. Vincent presents, there are moments where the façade breaks, where she reveals that there is an actual person underneath the performance. She laughs as she takes a large sip of water from a Stanley Cup and wipes sweat off her forehead with a towel. It’s a crack in the persona of St. Vincent but it’s one she’s happy to allow, opening up even further as she talks about how glad she is to be able to perform and jokes about one of the first times she was in the UK: “The NHS cured my most vicious UTI for free.” It’s clear that there’s a dedication within her to put on a good show and to be as entertaining as she is, which is why it’s a shame that for all the passion that St. Vincent and her band put into the show, sometimes the audience fails to truly match her energy. There are times when she’ll ask an audience to sing a lyric only to get a half-hearted response. You can see groups of people sitting in the balcony appearing almost unimpressed, waiting for her to address them individually.

Despite this sometimes lacklustre reception from the crowd, St. Vincent’s All Born Screaming show is a display of someone at the peak of her creative capabilities. She is beautifully able to perform a potent, dynamic show with cutting, powerful lyrics and insanely talented guitar work, supported by a strong band and delivered with a power only capable of being delivered from St. Vincent herself.

★★★★