Liz Phair at King’s Theater: Live Review
Contributing writer Owen Neaman recounts his experience at one of Phair's Brooklyn performances on her Exile In Guyville 30th anniversary tour
By Owen Neaman
Liz Phair, whose 1993 seminal indie rock debut Exile In Guyville served as a benchmark for every confessional singer-songwriter of the 1990s, wrapped up the album’s 30th-anniversary tour last month. On November 30th, Phair performed a sold-out show at King’s Theater in Brooklyn, a majestic, 2-story venue that served as the perfect setting for a celebration of the seminal album. Phair and her band played the eighteen-track album in full and in sequence at every show on the tour, staying true to the rough-around-the-edges and snappy pace of the original record.
As the opening chords of “6 '1” played, the reaction from the audience was so deafening that Phair’s voice was almost drowned out by the sea of 3,000 people singing along with her. She seemed to feed off the energy of the audience, hitting high notes with ease and her signature deadpan inflection. Her band gave a stellar performance, featuring two auxiliary guitarists along with a bassist and a drummer. Despite the somewhat large lineup, the band was extremely tight and the song arrangements never felt bloated. It was somewhat odd to hear full-band renditions of the lower-fidelity songs on Guyville, some of which only feature vocals and clean-tone electric guitar). However, with the added firepower of two guitarists and an incredible rhythm section, these lower-key songs (“Soap Star Joe” and “Mesmerizing”) sounded anthemic and engaged the audience even during the lesser-known numbers.
Needless to say, when the band played the album’s popular cuts like the endlessly hooky “Never Said” and “Fuck and Run”, the crowd of Gen X’ers and newer fans alike screamed the choruses. Despite the enthusiastic response of the audience, the songs still felt emotionally intimate. Phair took a breath before “Fuck and Run”, quipping “I wrote these songs thirty years ago, and I’m still not over this guy”. As tongue-in-cheek as these were, it was fascinating to hear Phair’s 56-year-old voice singing the sexually loaded lyrics to “Flower.” However, the fact that Phair kept these vulgar odes to post-college hookup culture stays true to the sentiment of the album -it’s a blunt, unflinching collection of pictures that were meant to concisely document the zeitgeist she was witnessing. Thirty years and a sold-out tour later, it’s been made clear that Guyville’s idiosyncratic portrait of a female musician grappling with sex has resonated not only with Gen X but with a universal audience.
Not only that, but Phair’s influence on an entire generation of artists was made clear by the performance of the openers, a rock band called Blondeshell. The band warmed up the audience with a handful of pulsing, hook-heavy rock songs from their eponymous debut album that was released earlier this year. Also in the mix was an energetic cover of Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon”, performed with solely bass, drums, and guitar. Phair’s influence on the band was definitely clear, but the group’s singer and de facto leader, Sabrina Teitelbaum, had a distinctly more pop-punk singing style. Nonetheless, Blondeshell was a solid opening act for Phair and company.
Later in the set, my ears perked up when Phair started talking about her formative musical experiences at Oberlin College. She joked that there were “the liberal arts slackers who were in bands and the classical prodigies in the conservatory”, and that her music was mainly influenced by the latter. Sarcasm aside, some of the greatest moments of the set were the more quiet and melodic numbers where Phair was only accompanied by another guitarist or piano, such as in “Shatter” or “Canary”. The spare rendition of “Canary” was absolutely gorgeous, with Phair sounding even more vulnerable than she did on the album and a dazzling projection sequence on the massive screens behind the band. After the song, she explained, “I feel like you guys get me. I was raised in Chicago, but you know, it’s here where I feel like I get you guys. And you get me”.
As the band played the final chords of “Strange Loop”, a resounding applause prompted a five-song encore from the band (I was thrilled to hear two cuts from both Whip-Smart and whitechocolatespaceegg). “Supernova” and “Polyester Bride” sounded absolutely triumphant, and it was clear that the entire band was genuinely having fun on stage. Phair closed the set with “Why Can’t I”, a single from her divisive self-titled pop-rock album. The entire audience’s collective appreciation was so much larger than their love for Exile in Guyville, as Phair’s musical attitude alone was the thing that resonated with them the most. The entire set was transformative, leaving me with a new appreciation of Guyville’s consistency, flow, and lyrics, and even more respect for Phair’s artistic craft.