Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Fiona Apple at the Winstar: this is not about hash

"Fiona Apple doesn't perform her songs -- they escape. "

That is the prevailing rhetoric surrounding Fiona Apple's current Idler Wheel tour, recent arrest notwithstanding. And it's a fitting sentiment, one that Apple perpetuates in each of her performances thus far, and it's a telling one, too, that she has reached a point as a performer that critics are no longer labeling her performance as performances. No, they go to the top shelf of their vocabulary when Fiona comes through town. But it fits. She is an enigma, disappearing from the scene and emerging seven years later with a heart-wrenching album of raw and intimate songs.  

When she stands behind the mic, you can hear the intensity in her voice, see it in her thin body as pounds at her chest during a verse, feel it as she crouches down on the stage, contemplating or what-have-you during a interlude. Her fingers fly and bounce atop the keys of the piano.
Image Courtesy of Pegasus News