Live review: Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville at the Vic

There are many myths about Exile in Guyville, one of the great rock albums of the post-punk era and Liz Phair’s travelogue of the booze-soaked, testosterone-laden Wicker Park rock scene of the early 90s. Most of these myths were fashioned by Phair herself: that it’s a double album (it isn’t, clocking in at just over 55 minutes),**  that it’s a song-by-song reply to Exile on Main Street (if it is, only Phair knows how). Then of course there's the mythic criticism that everything else she’s done since has been lousy (a handful of tracks from her two albums following Guyville wouldn’t suffer for the comparison to her debut).

But that was many years ago, and reality has set in. Her show at the Vic – a performance of Guyville in its entirety to mark the 15-year anniversary of its release - suggested she wants to put as much distance between herself and Guyville as she can. And that includes the city that spawned it.

Guyville’s a tough album to pull off live, and Phair didn’t seem up to the challenge. She started off strong, if rough, with “6’1”” and “Help Me Mary.” She’s never been a very good singer, but that’s beside the point as she has one of the best vocal snarls in rock, and both songs proved she hasn’t lost it. But “Never Said” plodded along, setting the pace for a languid first half. It was almost as if you could hear a time clock being punched somewhere.

Things picked up in the second half, before falling apart again. Though her slurring version of “Fuck and Run” robbed the song of most of its power, “Girls, Girls, Girls” improved in this setting, the bawdy cheers from the audience ratcheting up her femme fatale confessions. Bringing the show to a halt by forgetting the opening chords of “Divorce Song,” she barely got it back on “Shatter,” then rushed through “Flower” as if it were a hoedown. The song became not so much an assured expression of raw sexuality, but a klutzy come-on from a barroom drunk.

Phair’s can’t-be-bothered flair also extended to Chicago. “What’s this I hear about the Cubs going all the way?” she said prior to an almost unrecognizable arrangement of “Gunshy.” Yes, and have you tried our thick-crust pizza? And then there was her offhand remark that the guitar she was holding had either the volume knobs or the “tone box” – she couldn’t remember which – from a guitar owned by Jim Ellison, the frontman for Material Issue who committed suicide 12 years ago last week. As a few Rock Woos of Recognition rang out, she said “He will be missed,” in a tone that suggested one must pay lip service to an unfortunate incident, in order to fully milk it.

Then after a limp run-through of “Explain It To Me,” an audience member stupidly called out a request, perhaps forgetting the point of the evening. Phair stepped up to the mic to remind him, saying she didn’t want to mess with her “kick ass marketing plan.” After ending her set with the album’s final track, she stepped off the stage, the lights came up and the house music started to play, telling the audience it was time to leave; Phair had delivered her contractually agreed upon performance. Not having it, the audience cheered and begged for her to return, and she confessed to not having prepared an encore, then proved it by stumbling through “Chopsticks,” a new song that rhymed “soul” with “rock and roll” and a rendition of “Polyester Bride” wherein Phair forgot the lyrics and couldn’t be bothered to actually play the song’s riff during the chorus, substituting “la-la-las” instead.

It’s not surprising that Phair would like to put Guyville to rest once and for all. She’s never seemed particularly inclined to develop as an “artist,” preferring to make a record, wring out of it whatever notoriety and attention she could, and then move on. So continuing to revisit the past does her no favors. But in the same way that one doesn’t hold a memorial service for a dead friend, only to point out that friend’s faults and mock those who show up, Guyville deserved more last night than Phair was willing to give.

** Correction: I've been rightly called out on the carpet by both our Clubs editor and none other than the Brad Wood, producer of Exile in Guyville who notes in an e-mail to me: "EIG is indeed a double album, having been printed on 2 vinyl lp's (as was EOM). I assume you are young and don't know of the restrictions placed on album length due to the format's limitations. A monster-sized recording like Say Anything's newest is a true double cd and would require 4 pieces of vinyl, if pressed." While I'm sadly not as young as Mr. Wood presumes me to be, my larger point was more to the album's artistry and content, rather than the technical process behind it. But yes, on vinyl, it's a double album. My apologies.