I was lucky enough to see Fiona Apple and Damien Rice play at the central park summer stage last night. Definitely not the clientele you'd find at a Pearl Jam concert on the Camden Waterfront. Besides the fact that my sexual preference was very much in the minority, these people were reading between sets. That's right, I spotted at least 5 people reading a book while waiting for Fiona to come on stage. These books ranged in topics from Psychology to LSAT practice exams to Shakespeare. Weird shit.
My lasting impression after seeing Fiona for the first time is that I wouldn't mess with that chick. She comes off really cute and sweet and then gets really pissed off and appears to be having a seizure on stage. While I could do without the bouts of trembling and hitting herself, the emotions she has tied up in her music are quite evident and genuine.
One thing I really enjoyed about watching Fiona perform is that her music's true sound is present and easily discerned from her studio recordings. It's obvious that her record producers have a large effect on the way she's allowed to sing in order to produce a successful album (We all know that Extraordinary Machine wasn't even supposed to be released due to poor sales projections.) Music is too much of a wonderful thing to succumb to those dollar counters in suits.
Have you ever heard someone say 'you can tell this band is good since the concert sounds just like the CD.'? Nothing annoys me more than this statement. If you want to hear the studio recording, then play it on your iPod and save yourself the 50 dollar ticket and over-priced beers in the process. When you see an artist live, you really get to see what they are about, what makes them tick. If they're a good artist, they might even bring it to the point of appearing to have seizures on stage.