It's hard to say who had more fun Saturday night at First Avenue: the sold-out, resoundingly Gen-X-aged crowd or Liz Phair herself.
Wearing a bright-yellow T-shirt from St. Cloud's Uff-Da Records given to her pre-show, the star of the show seemed happy to be back on the road with a full band. She was especially thrilled to be back at First Ave for the first time in a decade. She also mentioned how glad she was to be back in her native Midwest. And she visibly got a kick out of watching the crowd kicking it up to her songs.
"I love a rowdy crowd," Phair said as the audience kept hooting and hollering several songs into the 90-minute set.
The 1,500 fans certainly had reason to be enthusiastic, too, as this was perhaps her most accessible, discernably crowd-pleasing show in 15-plus years. Even more than her stripped-down Turf Club gig in June to mark the 25th anniversary of her seminal debut album "Exile in Guyville," she played a whole lot of songs that the audience wanted to hear, and she played them the way they wanted to be heard – with a tight, heavy, mostly new, four-piece backing band.
Plenty of "Exile" tunes still dotted the set list, starting with the opener "Flower" and ending with a giddy two-song encore of "F--- and Run" and "Divorce Song." But many of the highlights that came in between were from Phair's other 1990s albums – proof there's a lot more to her discography than "Exile." Although, there wasn't a whole lot from the 2000s.
After tearing through "Flower" with a darkened stage and no drums, both the band and the stage lit up full-tilt for the second song, 1994's "Supernova," Phair's nearest thing to an MTV and rock-radio hit. Then came two snakier, more snide '90s nuggets, "Johnny Feelgood" and "Cinco de Mayo," both played with palpable grit by her band and a sly grin by Phair.
That smile grew even wider as Phair welcomed out Sadie Dupuis from perfectly picked opening band Speedy Ortiz to play "Blood Keeper," a 1998 B-side to Phair's album "Whitechocolatespaceegg" that Dupuis herself plucked out of obscurity and posted a recording of before this tour. It was a fun duet but hardly lived up to the songs that followed.
"Uncle Alvarez" was turned into a stormier, more melancholy rocker to great effect. "Never Said" and "Polyester Bride" prompted joyous audience sing-alongs. She played one new song, "The Game," which was something of a downer but fit in nicely. And at least one of her early-'00s songs, "Extraordinary," kept the energy level amped up (not so true of the pre-encore finale "Why Can't I," though).
