By Bob Gendron
Chicago Tribune | November 19, 2023
The emotional and sonic splendor of Liz Phair’s concert Saturday at a sold-out Chicago Theatre wasn’t lost on the singer herself. “This is a night of a lifetime,” she said during a brief pause, nearly at a loss for words at the uproarious reception that greeted her after every song.
Granted, Phair didn’t just run through a random batch of material. The vocalist-guitarist devoted the brunt of the 90-minute set to a start-to-finish performance of “Exile in Guyville,” her pioneering 1993 album that recently celebrated an anniversary and was recorded in Chicago, where Phair lived after growing up in the north suburbs and attending college.
Yet the show — electrifying, magnetic, energetic, heroic, cathartic — represented much more than a warm homecoming. Watching the California-based Phair’s joyous reactions, and hearing her project a knowing confidence and infectious spirit that fed into the music made it seem as if she waited her entire career for this occasion. Blowing by all of her local appearances in recent memory, and free of the expectations and identity prejudices that once caused her retreat, Phair certainly acted like it.
Yet the show — electrifying, magnetic, energetic, heroic, cathartic — represented much more than a warm homecoming. Watching the California-based Phair’s joyous reactions, and hearing her project a knowing confidence and infectious spirit that fed into the music made it seem as if she waited her entire career for this occasion. Blowing by all of her local appearances in recent memory, and free of the expectations and identity prejudices that once caused her retreat, Phair certainly acted like it.
Those of a certain age who found themselves living here in the early ‘90s might find it difficult to believe Phair’s landmark debut arrived three decades ago. Then a member of a small albeit flourishing Wicker Park artistic community that included bands such as Urge Overkill, and part of a larger area scene that also claimed the Smashing Pumpkins, Eleventh Dream Day and Touch and Go Records, the singer helped shift rock’s epicenter from Seattle to Chicago.
Yet Phair’s greater contribution resonated far beyond her North Side neighborhood. Bold, provocative, ambitious and defiant, “Exile in Guyville” permanently altered what women could say on a record, and how they could present and express themselves. Issued on a small label (Matador Records) with no major licensing or distribution deals, the effort won widespread critical acclaim and attracted attention for its then-controversial content.
Aside from some lyrics by artists such as Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and polymaths PJ Harvey and Tori Amos, the messages Phair delivered on her debut didn’t exist in popular music — especially not in such whip-smart, unvarnished form. Structured around the Rolling Stones’ 1972 benchmark “Exile on Main St.” release, “Exile in Guyville” landed as a bombshell of conception, execution and meaning.
Independent-minded female artists who have emerged since owe it a debt. The album introduced an ethos, opened a new lane for courageous storytellers and allowed what they do to be possible. You can hear it today in the assertive, raw approaches of rock-pop contemporaries like Boygenius, Mitski and Angel Olsen. Its presence also pulses in the brash hip hop of Megan Thee Stallion and City Girls, who invert male fantasies and traditional systems of dominance and reclaim them for their own use.
Onstage, Phair avoided any mention of the seismic impact “Exile in Guyville” had. She kept banter to a minimum, limiting any big statement to thoughts she already shared with the press — essentially, a concise reflection on the spaces she occupied while she devised the album, the uncertainty of youth and the social scene that she valued. Phair offered no insights or stories about the songs, and only a passing remark about the record’s connection to Chicago.
All the better, as nothing about the presentation felt nostalgic or sentimental. Particularly given the all-in manner in which Phair honed her guitar skills to ace the songs’ off-kilter rhythms and moody textures. And surrounded herself with a four-piece band that enhanced their immediacy, presence and weight. She also benefited from the fact that each of the 18 “Exile in Guyville” tunes sounded as if they could have come out last week; the arrangements, and particularly the lyrics, remain immune to age and trends.
Wearing a sleeveless dress and leather jacket, Phair seemingly harbored a similar privilege regarding her voice, which retained its familiar conversational tones and reedy register. Save for losing the highest reach of her falsetto, she sang with an assuredness that was absent in the past, and utilized subtle phrasing to her advantage. Where other singers rely on power or technique, Phair succeeded with craft, intimacy and cleverness.
Wisely, she made minimal adjustments to the songs. The most consistent change owed to the fuller, beefier foundations the band developed in comparison to those on the lo(wer)-fi studio versions. The most obvious modification happened amid “Flower” and “Johnny Sunshine,” which witnessed a team of choral singers standing in the aisles on the floor and in the balcony lending angelic vocal contrast.
The explicit “Flower” — on which Phair detailed frank sexual reactions, desires and promises not to seduce but confront — reflected an uptick in urgency she demonstrated on certain works that addressed toxic patterns of objectification, manipulation and stereotyping. She preserved the tugs of war between explosive dynamics and quiet tension, yet sang with a clear and commanding voice, inviting up to three guitars and a bass to combine with pounding drums without fear of being drowned out.
The singer paired such vitality, and rough-and-tumble attitude, to brilliant effect with her sharp-tongued words. Coming on as the O.G. of painful breakup narratives, “Divorce Song” spoke truths via Phair’s deadpan deliveries and mocking retorts. The brooding “Girls! Girls! Girls!” flipped the script on who gets control in a relationship, Phair’s taunting inflection leaving up for debate her seriousness about revenge. On the shimmying “Mesmerizing,” the singer’s cool demeanor and professed happiness wagged like a corrective finger in the face of the song’s offensive male protagonist.
For all the humor, laughter and fun Phair employed, and cultural takedowns she managed, nothing could outmaneuver the anguish and alienation at the heart of the spare “Canary” and deceptively upbeat “(Expletive) and Run.” They served as stark reminders of why “Exile in Guyville” remains fiercely relevant.
Phair and company closed with six favorites drawn from her three successive LPs that followed “Exile in Guyville,” each song keying in on her penchant for deft melodies and flamethrower hooks. As she strummed her guitar, leaning forward with her left shoulder and drawing the other back, she stared out into the crowd and up at the balcony. Smiling from ear to ear, Phair understood the significance of the moment.
After all, she pleaded for it more than 30 years ago on “Help Me Mary.” Justifiable anger counterbalanced with harmony, righteous disgust transformed into fame. An earned peace, if you will. And how.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.
Setlist from Chicago Theatre Nov. 18 (“Exile in Guyville”)
“6′1″”
“Help Me Mary”
“Glory”
“Dance of the Seven Veils”
“Never Said”
“Soap Star Joe”
“Explain It to Me”
“Canary”
“Mesmerizing”
“(Expletive) and Run”
“Girls! Girls! Girls!”
“Divorce Song”
“Shatter”
“Flower”
“Johnny Sunshine”
“Gunshy”
“Stratford-on-Guy”
“Strange Loop”
Encore
“Supernova”
“Johnny Feelgood”
“Go West”
“Polyester Bride”
“Extraordinary”
“Why Can’t I?”
Featured Image: Liz Phair, on her “Exile in Guyville” 30th anniversary tour, performs at the Chicago Theatre Nov. 18, 2023. (Photo: John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
