Fiona Apple and her many personalities provide enough drama and tension to fill an entire record of conflict, from ennui to psychotic.
But her CDs are only a candle to the industrial-grade blowtorch that is her live show.
Apple’s Wednesday night show at the CityLights Pavilion was hotly entertaining on multiple levels, the upper echelons of which were her darkly melodic music and her utterly bizarre stage antics.
From the 1-2-3 opening slap of the spiteful “Get Him Back,” the literate “To Your Love” and the undeniable “Shadowboxer” to her soulful takes on “The Way Things Are” and “Limp” that followed, Apple proved again that she is one of those songwriters who get underneath your skin.
She digs and claws her way there into the protection of a few layers, enough to make you feel it, and then she wallows and wails and wiggles. Her songs are potent and smart microcosms of emotion and femininity, yet they’re only the powerless vehicles for her true talent.
Apple will always be remembered more for her voice than her songwriting. While her lyrics are intelligent, they’re of a certain era, portraits of a specific age. Apple will turn 29 in September. Her biggest hit record was her debut, “Tidal,” which came out in 1996 when she was 19. She makes it work, but she also seems like she’s speaking slightly out of her own vernacular.
But her voice is her own, taking the serious drama of a Carole King and injecting it with a scary amount of life and soul and girth. And whether Apple was tackling the demanding “Shadowboxer,” which bests the recorded version 10 times over, or the more straightforward “I Know,” which provided a tuneful and much-needed break from Apple’s constant intensity, the singer-songwriter’s voice careens through the songs’ peaks and valleys with a knowing sense of measure that’s eerily mature.
Which is OK, because she evens the field out with her bizarro stage behavior. Fiona the misunderstood artist will sit silently next to the piano, her face buried in her hands, rocking not like Ray Charles but Rain Man.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
