Fiona Apple
Friday- October 13th, 2006

In the course of the last decade, Fiona Apple has released three outstanding albums but she is still an enigma to many radio programmers, record company management, and the general public outside her loyal fan-base. This is understandable. Her music exists somewhere between the nebulous genres of piano driven rock and female singer songwriter. Her contemporaries however, are more Tom Waits than Elton John and more Joni Mitchell than Jewel. On Friday night, October 13th in Tokyo, dressed in an elegant and unrevealing black dress, she gave Japanese fans their first chance to hear songs from 2005’s Extraordinary Machine. She showed evidence of not having a lot of touring experience and the talent to show why this is unfortunate.

Hall C at the International Forum is a beautiful space with beveled panels and baffles that had me wondering what this concert would have sounded like with all acoustic instruments. As it was, three keyboard rigs on stage in addition to the baby grand was probably one too many. Sometimes recreating the sounds on her albums was accomplished to the detriment of letting the songs breathe and have a life of their own on stage. Violin sounds that emanate from keyboards are fine on a CD but…

Still, there were soaring highs. Get Gone, Shadowboxer, and Slow Like Honey delivered by Fiona from her knees captured everything wonderful about her: the varied melodies and tempos, a wide dynamic range, and an even wider emotional one. Overall, the more contemplative and melancholic songs in her catalog fared better than the angrier ones. On the latter, she lacked the control to inject strong emotion without slips into shredding. Of course this out of control aspect is an endearing quality but, at age 29, one she is ready to leave behind. This, and her curious inability to overcome nervousness when it comes to addressing an audience between songs, (she never acknowledged what country she was in and managed only to stumble through a band introduction) didn’t keep Fiona from proving she is an extraordinary machine. It only prevented her from finding fifth gear.