A non-SXSW attendee following anyone on Twitter down in Austin this week could easily develop a case of FOMO (the Fear of Missing Out). Well, Fiona Apple’s comeback set at NPR’s showcase at Stubb’s last night was so heavily tweeted, that it almost felt like you could be there even if you were in a cubicle.
Roaring back into the spotlight like a bat out of hell, the wayward singer-songwriter performed a growling eleven-song set, including exactly three new songs, all presumably from her upcoming (“this spring”) fourth record, the 23-word The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do: “Anything We Want,” “Valentine,” and “Every Single Night.” SPIN’s own Caryn Ganz and David Marchese were there, tweeting up a storm about the singer’s fiery, trembly, un-frivolous performance, which, in our (and, oh, everyone’s) humble opinion, was a damn long time coming.
A highly in-demand show like this was, of course, not live-streamed, nor apparently was unofficial filming allowed in the venue, considering the serious lack of YouTube videos available of the performance this morning, but rogue tapers Stereogum managed to get a lone recording of one of those three new songs, the predictably full-of-Fiona-Appley-percussion “Anything We Want,” below.
