Fiona Apple, Damien Rice live

Fiona Apple, Damien Rice
Charter One Pavilion, Chicago
Thursday, July 13, 2006

It’s emotionally exhausting to be overwhelmingly heartbroken, so when the essence of this process is flawlessly captured by a song it’s both distinctively illusionary and sensory for a listener. Past frustrations and sentiments become more lifelike with the utterance of each lyric and more current with the striking or strumming of an instrument. Without warning the melancholy of the songwriter becomes your own. It’s the genius combination of a great song with an even greater musician.

Fiona Apple and Damien Rice afforded the audience at the Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island four straight hours of vicarious heartbreak.

Opening her set with “Get Him Back” from her latest album, Extraordinary Machine, Apple appeared relaxed as she sat at a black piano with her hair covering her face. Wearing a floor-length purple dress with sleeves that touched her elbows, there appeared to be no hint of the “mad” Fiona often described in the press. Aside from the occasional rocking back and forth and the incessant switching of hairstyles, she was composed throughout “To Your Love” and “Shadowboxer,” but when she removed herself from the piano and stood for “The Things We Are,” the violently passionate Fiona emerged.

Her small frame appeared fragile as she swaggered and beautifully danced in awkward rhythm-less jerks. Surprisingly each movement still embodied the sentiment of the song it accompanied. Aside from occasional glances at an indistinguishable picture taped to the side of the piano, the audience seemed mesmerized by Apple, rarely singing along and simply staring at the honest performance unfolding. Honest, because Apple seemed oblivious to the crowd. Prancing on stage in a trance-like state she performed for no one, several times removing the microphone from her lips and singing to the emptiness beside her. Painful scowls, insect rants, and imaginary fist pumpings rounded out her performance. Dedicating an equal amount of time to all three of her albums, she played several tracks from both Tidal and When The Pawn Hits . . . as well as numerous songs from Machine including “Not About Love” and “Tymps (The Sick In The Head Song).”

But even before the audience experienced Apple’s teeth gritting tales of heartbreak they became acquainted with the explicitly poignant serenading of Damien Rice.

As opening act Davíd Garza left the stage after three charming songs, he said in regards to his successor Damien Rice, “He thinks you don’t love him,” and with that the tone of Rice’s performance was set.

Standing onstage with a chipped guitar, Rice appeared defeated before he uttered a word. In oversized pants, a simple T-shirt, and blazer Rice looked fittingly delicate. He began by playing “Blowers Daughter Part Two” a track not found on 2004’s O. With the gut-wrenching intensity of Rice’s singing, the orchestral sound of the cello, and the setting of the sun, any cheery traits of the collective audience’s day swiftly diminished. Moderately unfamiliar with Rice, most sat captivated by the raw candor of his music. Much of the nine-song set garnered scattered standing ovations, but no one more than “The Professor & La Fille Danse,” a song in which Rice sings the last verse in French. Using sexuality to defuse the dispirited misery of his music, Rice compared the practice of being circumcised in the U.S. to that of his native Ireland and in a rich charming Irish brogue and a few short words turned the temperament of the rest of his time onstage into a one-night stand with the audience.

By the end of his set Rice, like Apple, appeared exhausted and satisfied. But as with the end of any extraordinary relationship, one party had to be the loser, and for the audience the night ended too soon leaving them all heartbroken and wanting more.

— Angie Maldonado

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly