Liz Phair played at the Avalon last week. It was quite a different show compared to the last time I was there (back when it was called the Palace). Besides the changes in the decor (new fancy carpet, new bars; same old helpful bathroom attendants) the crowd was moving slowly.

I wasn't in to Liz Phair until I read Camden Joy's novel The Last Rock Star Book or: Liz Phair, a Rant while traveling in Mexico. Reading it in a grungy Merida hotel room lit by dim flourescents, I wasn't sure if she were really as interesting as the book made her out to be but I wanted to find out. Afterward I didn't become a huge fan, but she was pretty good, and there were a few songs I really liked. Maybe for cheesy reasons; I can find it hard to resist geographically relevant music.

I was flying into Chicago at night
Watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke
The sun was setting to the left of the plane
And the cabin was filled with an unearthly glow
In 27-D, I was behind the wing
Watching landscape roll out like credits on a screen

I used to say she was an idiot savant. By that I meant that she came up with some amazing stuff sometimes, but you couldn't count on it, and I got the feeling she didn't know how she did it.

I was apprehensive about this show. After listening to samples from her new CD I thought that a generous critic might call the best songs “dull”.

But it turned out to be OK. She hardly played any of the new stuff, and she is still a babe, which I have to admit seems to count for something. She's just no PJ Harvey, I guess is what it comes down to.

P.S. There was a little celebrity sighting action after the show. I didn't actually see Bob Saget, but my friend Joanne did, and she somehow convinced him both to get her car from the parking attendant (since he doesn't wait in lines, obviously) but also to call my cell phone. We conversed for a while, no biggie.