I forgot to add an update about the Liz Phair concert on Thursday night. Shame on me!

As I mentioned before, it was held at the infamous First Avenue club in downtown Minneapolis, where most of the movie Purple Rain was shot. They have a new sign out front, but for the most part, it looks about the same inside. Except it's a little smaller than it looks on the big screen, which is usually the case. The acoustics were actually pretty good, and it's a fairly intimate venue--definitely a plus, since Liz Phair is one of those artists where it's better to be up close and personal.

I went with my friend Jay from work, who is a new "Phair phan" (hey, did I just make up a cool handle for her followers? I think I did! I'm probably not the first to come up with it, though, so whatever). Liz had two opening acts, but we missed them because we decided to hang out at the Irish bar across the street until it was closer to showtime. After some greasy pub food and a few beers, we arrived at the club about 20 minutes before she took the stage. Jay decided to wander around the club to try to find the best angle to watch the show, but I stationed myself up front and to the far right of the stage. I had a pretty good view of her, even if it was just of her left side. And I was close, so that was cool. While she was performing, I kept trying to will her over to my side of the stage so she could slap hands with me or something like the rock stars do on TV. No such luck. She pretty much just stayed center stage during most of the show. She also switched guitars a lot, more than I remember her doing the first time I saw her back in Indy last August. Jay had a theory that the guitar switching was a power trip thing, because she had this cute little younger guy come out to wait on her and dutifully hand her guitars and adjust the strap for her. He said that she probably just did that "because she can." I argued that maybe she wanted a certain sound for each song, and wanted to acheive that using different guitars. Or maybe it was a power trip. (If so, what's the problem? I'd probably do the same thing!)

As for the music, she did a pretty balanced mix of stuff from all four albums, (in contrast to the show in August, where at least half of the material she performed was from her latest CD). I think my favorite this time around was the encore, where she did two of her "dirty" songs, "Fuck and Run" and "H.W.C." (short for Hot White Cum. Yeah, she's naughty). It was a good show overall; she seemed more confident and relaxed than last time.

I didn't get her autograph, but that was okay since Marcus and I met her in Indy after the Vogue show and she signed my Liz Phair promotional sticker. This time around, I wanted to bring one of her CDs that she could sign for me, but I forgot. I didn't see her outside doing the meet-n-greet thing on Thursday, probably because it was butt-clenching cold, and she didn't want to freeze (she was just wearing a little camisole thingie and jeans). I did get another souvenier, however--after the show we were standing around while her roadies were loading up her equipment, and I ripped off a huge piece of masking tape that was stuck on one of her instrument cases that said Marco -- Liz Phair on it. One of her roadies, this dreadlocked hippie guy, saw me do it and said "That wasn't very nice." I tried to give him the doe-eyes and said, "I'm sorry. No--I mean, I'm really sorry." He just shook his head and said again, "That wasn't nice." No, it wasn't. And I felt so bad about it that I went home that night and cried myself to sleep.

Oh, except that I didn't.