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I woke up alarmed… I’d like to believe it all started there, with “Fuck and Run,” one of those songs that hits so hard because it sounds like the young artist’s first crucial notebook purge, getting all the really important stuff (boyfriends, letters, sodas) out of the way first, after the initial realization that a song is the perfect repository for life’s problems. And then, in my dream, the other songs came next, as the artist continued to excavate every last remaining bit of her interiority and assemble it all for Exile In Guyville, still as close to perfect as any album I’ve heard.
The best thing about Liz Phair at the Fine Line was the loving presentation of these old songs, how there was no attempt to rearrange or polish, to embellish (yes, for an album of such variety, it is quite sparsely orchestrated), to question their validity, to reimagine them from the perspective of 18 years older. The slippery, seductive shimmer of Phair’s guitar remained, most beguilingly on “Divorce Song,” and there also were those deep-voiced declarations of non-love, made even more intimidating by Phair’s by-now effortless stage presence. Earlier, “6’1”,” its guitars harder, entering the fray with the force of something new, their timbre and rhythm immediately distinctive, inaugurated a world of amateur-genius-cool as tantalizingly as “I Will Dare,” even still.
In the realm of back-catalog-heavy concerts by veteran artists, this definitely fell under the category of “nostalgia trip,” but some unresolved questions linger. How does one reconcile the perfect replica of a rock ‘n’ roll world that Phair could only commit to tape in 1993 (before she had played more than a handful of live shows, before she cultivated her media savvy) with the real rock life she’s living in 2011? When she sings, “All the money in the world is not enough,” is that still true, or does it even matter that she seems to now have many of the things she sort of longed for decades ago. Her long silky blond hair and sparkly dress, her backing band of three young men, her admission of the amazing feeling of hearing her words sung back at her, it all looks like a dream realized, but is there more to conquer? Or can she just let her easeful mind unfurl from here on out?
Things to ponder. The jury (the one I’m on, at least) is still out on Phair’s 21st century output, but the two cuts pulled from last year’s Funstyle fared fairly well, a reverbed, atmospheric ballad that recalled “Shatter” and Guyville’s other most ethereal moments sounding particularly nice, and “Oh, Bangladesh” a bit less so, its repetitive chorus a trance for Phair to get lost inside, but maybe no one else. How these stack up against her early-century bids for the mainstream I can’t say, but she does seem to be indulging her muse now more than ever, for better or worse. Better, if you’re her. The sole “commercial” cut of the night, “Polyester Bride” (from 1998’s Whitechocolatespaceegg), a nice bridge between the freewheeling Phair of today and the one of yore, sounds like some kind of tipping point in hindsight, a lesson in keeping one’s particular songwriting tics while maximizing one’s audience. The lyrics lack none of Phair’s usual charm while telling the sort of barroom story that gets heavy play on contemporary country radio, and she moves between her high and low registers, each alternately breaking the spell of the other (a trick that I think is a big part of the key to her innate charisma), with customary ease and grace.
Call it the “crowd pleaser,” though this crowd wanted only to live in Guyville for as long as possible. The night ended there, in the second encore, with “Flower,” a song everyone loves because it almost single-handedly balances out the disproportionate number of horny songs written by men. I questioned the decision to bring a young woman from the audience on-stage to sing the chant that recurs throughout (“Every time I see your face I get all wet between my legs,” etc.). Phair has talked about how she was once not so wise about the ways she and the media presented herself, and there can hardly be time for a random audience member to think through the meanings engendered by chanting a sexy come-on at Liz’s side to a room full of strangers. But random audience member got through it nicely, so what do I know?
