She played a free show at the Chicago tower records. I'm surprised at how horribly it was advertised... I didn't know about it until my girlfriend called me a couple hours before it started. It was a lot of fun regardless.
she played seven songs... I believe the setlist went in this order:
Extraordinary
Johnny Feelgood
Why Can't I?
Divorce Song
Rock me
Supernova
Glory
Overall, I think she sounded A LOT better at this show than she did at Leno, Kimmel, or the 101.9 performance yesterday... she joked around a lot, and is really one funny woman. She looked wonderful as always, and stayed afterwards to meet the audience and sign EVERYONE's cds. The wait was about an hour.
I asked her a bunch of questions. My first one was whether or not she is still thinking about the "song of the month" idea that she mentioned a few months ago, and she said that she IS still thinking about it. I also asked whether or not Jason Mraz was opening for her, and she said that it will be a co-headlining tour, but that she will probably play first because she likes going to bed early. I also managed to sneak in that I met her mom and I will be seeing her four times next month... she really has a great sense of humor and attitude... I really appreciated that she managed to maintain such a happy vibe even after an hour of signing. Great experience...
Mike
OK,
I can't believe only *one* other person from the list was there besides me. I haven't read the posts in about a week, and was looking forward to hearing what everyone else had to say but maybe there weren't that many of us there. So ... for those of you who couldn't make it -- here's a summary.
I got there about two hours early. The store was empty and the employees were setting up a table and posters with Liz pix on them where she'd be to autograph stuff. I'm thinking -- oh my God, no one else showed up? I can't be the first one or only one here -- jeez the album is not that bad guys. So I buy my CD to be autographed and inquire as to where they are hiding the crowd the clerk tells me "out there" and points to the balcony. I'm thinking - thank God, that means others showed up. i just hope that there's not too many so that i cant get in - and head out to see the line. it's not too bad, about 30 people or so. the signs on the doors say that you could have started lining up at 9 am and i think - God i hope no one did, there aren't that many people here now and it's about 4. So I take my place in line and hear the person behind me say that 20 minutes ago there were less than 15 people here.
highlights and observations from waiting in line:
*while waiting in line i learn that many people there keep up with the news
about Liz on ken's mesmerizing site and talk about how much they appreciate it
and what a great guy and dedicated guy he must be. (i am not exaggerating and
i kid you not. good for you, ken! *you* have fans! well, sort of... =) )
i concur that from only knowing him here, he is.
*the line itself was extremely diverse - everything from punk rockers to teenage girls [who only knew "why cant i" - didn't recognize extraordinary but really liked that song the best of her set, by the way, but both bought exile to have autographed, (a good sign indeed, i thought)], to preppy looking folk, to alternative folk, to hippie type folk - you name it, it was represented. and all ages, races and socioeconomic backgrounds, too. it was amazing. there were people much older than me and much younger than me of both genders. i was really surprised. the woman behind me and i agreed that if you had to pick out random people in a crowd who "knew who Liz Phair is" neither of us would have picked out 98% of those folks. i don't know who i would pick out, but it was interesting to note the diversity.
*i kept wondering how different this line experience would have been had it been even a few years ago. Would the wait have been longer? A different crowd? Why were the people who were in line in line to see Liz that day?
*while in line, a camera crew came down the stairs and followed the line all the way down the block to the end of the line - it multiplied incredibly in that last hour of waiting. by now its about 20 minutes until its supposed to start and we are still standing outside. folks around me joked about the camera crew - look! she really does have fans! but it was weird how these three guys two with cameras just came by with no announcement or explanation. we wonder if they're making a movie or a commercial or what. about ten minutes or less later the crew comes back by and asks if the woman behind me and I are "really hard core Liz fans." (i had on my 2000 Liz Phest T-shirt by the way. not planned i just grabbed it that morning without even thinking.) "like, you could answer trivia questions?" the guy without the camera says. he looks like what i imagine a producer might look like - very la or what i imagine that means - very trendy looking and very motivated and enthusiastic. Sure, I say and the woman behind me (almost too enthusiastically) says that we can. They ask if they can ask us questions on film and we say sure. I am frantically pulling up all of the Liz info i can muster in my brain. (i do not mean to sound pompous, but i do know a lot about Liz, having been on this list for years now, and a lot more than the people around me knew about her I later learned. but I'm freaking out because i don't know who these guys are or what this is for.) anyway, the point is, it made me really nervous trying to anticipate what they were going to ask. so they pull us out of line - sort of - clear the people around us a bit might be more accurate - and start rolling on both cameras from either side of us. the non-camera guy enthusiastically asks - so what do you think of the new album? the woman next to me says that she doesn't really like it but she guesses that its OK. the non camera guy makes a face. wrong answer, honey. i am thinking that if these guys are here to do a story on Liz this isn't the press that she needs, so i say - she set out to do a pop record and was really successful at it. it's a great album. then the guy asks so why do you like Liz Phair? (uhhhhh... how do you answer that? i don't know that i can answer that in a ten page paper much less a ten second sound clip with a camera stuck in my face and no forewarning.) the woman next to me starts saying that she has great lyrics. she's really insightful i add, and then the woman says - yeah, and she's the only woman on the planet I'd fuck. the interviewer guy makes a face again. oh - you guys probably cant use that, can you? she asks. i am mortified. i love Liz's music, have been a huge fan for years, and now i am frozen and can't say a word. their reaction to her response about not liking the new album and now this was obviously not the responses they were hoping for. the guys decides to finish up now and move on. i feel like a complete idiot i don't know what to say. i don't even know if they are still recording and i could say anything to help this situation out. so the guys say thanks for letting us interview you and ask us to record releasees for them to use these clips any time in any way shape or form forever. the camera guy tells me taht they want to use these to put on her website soon. now i really feel like an idiot it's over? that's it? he was kidding about the trivia? I'd have done better with those questions. and that's the best responses that i could muster to support Liz on her website? oh geez. i am so sorry that i couldn't be more supportive of Liz's new project or be more insightful about why i love Liz Phair. it happened so fast and i just froze. how awful. maybe if it had been done separately it would have been better - without having to react to and interrupt someone else's answers. oh well. they went on and interviewed at least one other guy behind us before heading in to the store. i hoe that his interview went better than ours did.
So the line moves through the store, winds around and then ends up in this side room where the racks have been pushed back and a stage has been put up. We get raffle tickets as we enter. Of course, the first three rows ahead of me are guys and women who are all taller than me. I'm 5 2. The teenage girls and other folks directly behind me are really short too. Someone from the back asks if everyone can sit down and the people in front either don't hear or just ignore him. We wait while Liz's record plays. (actually, when Liz came on stage someone asked her to have us all sit down too, and she said that she sympathized because she's short too, but left it at that.)
she comes in with two younger looking guys, who i think both played guitar - i don't know, i couldn't really see. she had on a purplish top, green skirt and sparkly silver high heeled shoes. (how she stood the whole performance and signing in those, i don't know. go Liz.) she needed a pick to start, and one guy in the audience had one that he gave to her which she did use. the tower guy had announced before she started that she would only play 6 songs, and that we would be allowed to only take pix during the first three. as it turns out - she played 6 and then "felt another one coming on" at the end and played seven. and people took pix the whole time. i was able to get a pix at the beginning - see it attached to the next email - because the tall people in front, although they did not move so that the short people could see - did take the cameras we passed up and took pictures for us so that we could see what she looked like later. That was very nice of them.
The camera crew guys were there when we came in, too and filmed the whole set from right up front. The guy ahead of me said that one of the camera crew guys said that we should look for this soon to be broadcast on her website. (I didn't hear that directly myself, so I don't know how true that is. Ken, do you know?)
The other interesting thing to note -- that Liz joked about herself -- was that she changed all of the "bad" words from her songs. Instead of (supernova) you fuck like a volcano -- you're hot like a volcano; instead of (why cant I) we haven't fucked yet -- we haven't done it yet; etc. In-between songs she was trying to kill time while the other guy tuned her guitar and she started to sing "everytime i see your face..no i cant sing that. we have 'wee ones' here. come to the metro shows and it will be different". someone yelled to ask her why she was signing g rated lyrics and she said that she has lots of substitute lyrics for her songs for when she has to clean them up. someone near me thought maybe it had something to do with the filming crew, too. The only "bad" words that she sang were damn and hell. It was interesting but weird to hear her songs all so g rated. Look at the set list again and think about it.
Afterwards they called out our raffle ticket numbers to line us up for autographs. One item per person, you can take pix of Liz but no pictures with Liz are allowed. We all get in line and Liz looks great and looks happy. The people around me are amazed that I drove six hours to see her and know the answers to all of their trivia questions about Liz. (They aren't hard questions, these are not 6'1"/S-S listers, where are you guys? is all I can think.). And 12 hours round trip in one day isn't that far. I've traveled by car or plane to see her in MN, OH, MI, IL, IN, lots of places, and most more than 6 hours. I think that's pretty normal for most of us here -- and many have come much farther than that to see her at least once in the last decade, I know. So I'm feeling like a fish out of water or at least a fish in the water but not with my correct school of fish. We finally get up to Liz and it was nice to see her look so happy like she was having fun. I did get my picture taken with her (yay) and told her thanks. the guy behind me comes up and says "tell her how far you came". I'm already walking away. no, its no big deal I say. how embarrassing! he says she drove 6 hours to see you! to Liz and she hollers over to me - aww, honey! was it worth it? absolutely! i say back. absolutely Liz! thanks! i am still embarrassed - because I was already to the door - but it was sweet of her to be so sincere and she appeared to be sincere about the appreciateiveness too. I have to say that Liz seems to always handle everything well and I appreciate how accessible and friendly she has always made herself to us in these situations. How many stories have been posted to this list about how she hung out with fans or talked with them after before or during her shows. I am sure that there are "bigger" stars that have fans that do more outlandish things than we do and probably with less or no acknowledgment or appreciation. I wanted to go find the camera crew and tell them that, but they appeared to be gone already. too bad.
It was great to see Liz perform and meet Liz again. And it was a great set. Her voice sounded truly beautiful. I kept thinking during the show how different it sounds now compared to when i saw her back in the mid 90's and even during the wcse - lillith - college tours. she seems so confident and her voice has smoothed out - if i had never heard her before this performance i would have been really impressed with her vocal talents and presence. i know many have criticized the glossy sound and production on these new songs but her voice really sounds that good live, too. it's an authentic, beautiful singing voice. i know some love exile for her voice there, and i love that its rough cuz i cant sing and i can sound OK singing it when i sing along. but good for her. if a better voice is what she wants i think she has done a great job achieving it. it really sounded great.
So that's the liz tower story.