The formal nature of Minneapolis’ avant-garde Walker Art Museum theater space meant that I did something unusual last night – I went to a concert 100% sober. For St. Vincent, I would recommend it, just so you can notice details like these.

-She regularly stops to drink out of 3 tiny, white cups, all in a row. She boozin’! Or at least keeping her dainty blood sugars up. A photographer sitting on one of the pillows in the front said they also noticed “a tiny white cup of brown powder behind a speaker.” Hmmm.

-Sometimes, when she starts to emit little rainbows of coolness out of her ears, you can catch every single other member of her 3-piece band staring at her like little kids in love who don’t even know what sex is but know they want, want, want.

-Her opener Cate Le Bon, an unfriendly Nico-esque folksinger in what looked like an Old Navy long-sleeved shirt, can play the guitar approximately 1/300th as well as St. Vincent.

-When St. Vincent starts to really “shred,” she goes into a rock star lunge and does those weird eyebrow raises and little-kid-pooping expressions that look douchey on most musicians, except on her they look totally cool.

-She appears anorexic with normal lights on, but slightly more normal in a series of psychedelic, triangular beams of white, purple and red light.

-When she exited the stage, one of these automated lights seemed to acknowledge her and turn to watch her go, like R2D2 or something.

Another reason to be sober:

-So you don’t become one of those annoying cat-calling people who shouts “ay ay ay” and asks her to marry you. The show ain’t about you, dude/bro/chica.

– Text by Becky Lang, photos by Jay Gabler