Way back in 2017, St. Vincent ended her Jack Antonoff-produced album MASSEDUCTION with the arch, swirling ballad "Smoking Section." She released a very different version of that song a couple of years later when Jlin remixed it. On Monday night, by way of promoting her recent in-concert album Live In London, St. Vincent got some friends together to play "Smoking Section" on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show.
For last night's performance, Annie Clark sat at a table on a stage made up to look like a smoky hotel bar. She sang and played a lap steel that was up on the table next to her martini. Clark's regular keyboardist Rachel Eckroth played piano, but the rest of the band was full of ringers. Two backup singers sat next to Clark at that table: the spectral pop artist Hannah Cohen and the Scottish singer and actor Ella Hunt. Clark also had two stand-up bassists, James Genus from the Saturday Night Live band and Charlotte Kemp Muhl from the Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger. And sitting on a nearby amp, she had downtown legend Marc Ribot — Clark's "favorite guitar player," as she writes on Instagram.
This was an extremely cool performance! It started off as a hazy torch song, and it built into something big and fiery without Clark ever having to stand up from her table. Ribot did some incredibly evocative shredding in there. The entire thing had serious Twin Peaks Roadhouse vibes, which cannot be easy to conjure when Jimmy Fallon is perched nearby. I strongly suggest that you watch it below.
Live In London is out now on Total Pleasure/BBC Studios.