Bowery Ballroom
New York City / August 9, 2003

On her 1993 debut album, Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair laid out her wares under a sign that screamed SEX! NOW THAT I'VE GOT YOUR ATTENTION.... Listeners came for the sly, salacious come-ons and stayed for Phair's insight into regret, longing, and insecurity. But they didn't stay long. The two follow-up records yielded diminishing returns, both critically and commercially. So with this year's slick, unsubtle Liz Phair, indie rock's favorite horny librarian turned in her resignation letter, hiked up her skirt, and hitched a ride outta town with Avril Lavigne's producers.

The 36-year-old singer/songwriter's performance at New York City's Bowery Ballroom showcased a curious blend of Phairs new and old. Clad in a filmy minidress, the notoriously stage-spooked singer grinned broadly, dropped bons mots ("I think it's everybody's right to be hot"), and led a surprisingly self-confident charge through her ten-year catalog, juxtaposing idiosyncratic Guyville material with less-nuanced declarations of L-U-V from her new album.

After acknowledging the rather vituperative critical response to her new songs--which included a "career suicide" verdict in The New York Times--Phair threw herself into "Red Light Fever" and the energetic "Extraordinary," which she described as an updated version of the Guyville highlight "6'1"." Her touring band, a quartet of shaggy-maned young men not unlike the twentysomething boy toys she gleefully objectifies on Liz Phair, chipped some gloss off the well-manicured tunes. But it wasn't until "Johnny Feelgood"--from 1998's Whitechocolatespaceegg--that Phair seemed truly free. As her band laid down a twangy blues-rock groove, she sang about the exhilaration of falling for a bad boy who treats her rough, capturing a central tenet of Phairism: Sometimes the truth is in the contradiction. Before leaving the stage, Phair proclaimed her satisfaction with the night's set: ?It was hot, wet, and wonderful.? Then she walked off, never asking how it was for us.