Liz Phair

(Hiro Ballroom; 250 capacity; $30) Presented inhouse.

Band: Liz Phair, Greg Suran, Nick Macri, Dan Leali. Opened, reviewed June 25, 2008. Closed June 26.

By DAVID SPRAGUE

Given that artists almost universally recite a mantra about not wanting to be pigeonholed, it's been odd to see the dramatic uptick in performers staging events that spotlight a single work from what's generally a fairly extensive catalog. That was Liz Phair's modus operandi at this two-night stand, which found her playing her breakhrough debut "Exile in Guyville" in its entirety to mark the disc's deluxe reissue on ATO.

When she first brought that disc's songs to the stage back in the early '90s, Phair exuded a deer-in-the-headlights vibe that contrasted sharply with the material's acerbic sexality -- and compensated for her sometimes tenuous grasp on melody. Fifteen years on, she's clearly more comfortable in front of an aud, but as this uneven perf demonstrated, not markedly more virtuosic as a singer-guitarist.

But rather than derail the 18-song set, Phair's raw presentation provided ample fuel to push the proceedings forward -- adding to the volatility of songs like "Fuck and Run" and the opening "6'1" " and inducing a good deal of rooting on the part of aud members. She faired better on the more aggressive material --"Flower" was parricularly spot-on -- than introspective songs like "Gunshy," which wafted into the ether leaving little in the way of a vapor trail.

While she didn't tinker with the basic song structures all that much, Phair deserves credit for emotionally updating material that she wrote in her early 20s with aplomb, bringing a degree of world weariness to "Help Me Mary" and tempering the youthful sarcasm of "Dance of the Seven Veils" with a welcome wizening.

It would be unduly uncharitable to suggest that Phair would have to concentrate exclusively on that 15-year-old disc in order to assemble a greatest-hits retrospective in the first place, but there was a palpable dropoff in intensity when she delved into later material for the set's encore. On the bright side, an as-yet-untitled new song aired at the end showed that Phair's still capable of setting off the sort of fireworks that illuminated "Guyville" so brightly.

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