At the Verizon Music Festival’s first event on July 24 the
stage was set ““ literally ““ for a night of comic irony.
After all, what stranger way to kick-off a festival sponsored and
named after a corporate behemoth than with a performance by Aimee
Mann, who’s possibly made more headlines for her solitary
battle against the music industry than for her actual artistic
accomplishments?
Mann sang her sweet, independently released songs with a massive
“Verizon Music Festival” banner acting as backdrop,
setting the tone for the awkwardly charming show.
Mann filled out a two-hour set with plenty of banter, during
which she divulged that “Make a Killing” was written
for Noel Gallagher, professed an unabashed love for Coldplay, and
told the crowd that she is in fact a Verizon costumer (“I
think it has excellent service” she jibed amid groans from
the audience). Still, the songs provided the biggest highlights,
and Mann’s compositions were given an added lushness by her
backing band and Royce Hall’s acoustics.
Cuts off “Bachelor No. 2″ and last year’s
“Lost in Space” revealed Mann’s comfort inside
the traditional pop song, but it’s hard to imagine that Mann
will ever top the flash-flood of lyrical creativity and inspiration
that she conjured for the “Magnolia” soundtrack, a
collection of songs that captured the feelings of stilted
loneliness and alienation a touch more gracefully than P.T.
Anderson did in his three-hour opus. Those were the songs that best
revealed Mann’s strengths as a songwriter.
But no moment better revealed her appeal than during the first
encore when Mann responded to a request for “Invisible
Ink” by claiming she couldn’t hit the low notes, only
to test her own limits and make the attempt. After one false start
and one awkward performance ““ during which, yes, she
couldn’t hit the low notes ““ the crowd responded. A
talented songwriter whose vocal limitations are so apparent yet so
proudly worn, Aimee Mann is the kind of musician who won’t
ever achieve mass appeal because she doesn’t have the
ingredients to be iconic. She thrives on normality, with her
imperfections exposed, her contradictions are all too familiar.
And for a festival that so prominently flaunted a marriage of
corporate power and musical artistry, that Verizon banner
didn’t seem to bother her at all. Who would’ve
known?