So St Vincent fell from a stack of speakers mid-show at her Knoxville gig last weekend. It is important to note that, despite her penchant for scaling the most precariously towering stage piece in her vicinity while mid-melody, Annie Clarke has somehow made it this far without becoming a maimed rock star.
If anything, the trick simply accentuated her spindly, arachnid-like demeanour.
Unlike every other stage fall in recent memory, however, just about everyone is hoping St. Spider is okay. The consuming public were happier when splitting yourself theatrically during a gig was a calamity reserved for Madonna, The Edge and most Eurovision participants. In fact, those downfalls were openly celebrated for days.
Better still, when an artist attempts to “save it”, either one of the following things happens; they cartoonishly flail around until they hit the deck for a second time (as with Katy Perry and Lady Gaga), or they lie on the ground where they fall, in an attempt to make it look intentional.
The latter technique is more admirably shameless, but invariably has the effect of making the artist look like a hapless animal. Britney Spears emanated the grounded floundering of an upturned turtle, while Robbie Williams was more “beached whale”.
Meanwhile, Harry Hill is somewhere behind the scenes bookmarking all the above and more for a Christmas special, until everybody learns from St Vincent how to fall from stage without falling from grace.
