Annie Clark is a brilliant artist. The first time I saw her perform was in a packed music hall where she captivated several thousand people for 75+ minutes. Just her and her guitar. Larger than life. After the show when I met her I remember being surprised at how small she actually was. I guess I was expecting a giant after watching her kill it on stage.

So in the early days of the pandemic when The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s annual gala went virtual and asked her to perform, I was extremely excited she wanted to do a no-fi single take version of her iconic “New York.”

New York had just been beaten down and a low-fi, socially distanced version of “New York” felt appropriate . By this time I had seen a half dozen of her performances. She can go big and polished, but I had also been fortunate to see some of her warm ups before concerts and knew those were just as honest and amazing in an entirely different way.