Image by Kirstie Shanley
Aimee Mann sets herself apart from the suburban Chicago crowd
August 31, 2008, at Ravinia Festival
By Selena Fragassi
Published: September 2nd, 2008 | 11:40pm
Ravinia Festival is about the last place you’d find Aimee Mann on a normal day — unless she happened to be searching for tragic characters to inspire new material. While the lawn-friendly concert series has recently upped the ante with promising lineups in the last years (see: Aimee Mann), they have reached a stalemate with passive-aggressive concertgoers who waste Van Gogh-ian starry nights in their own world consumed by citronella candles, various wheels of expensive imported cheeses, and talk of recent trips to the Poconos.
The real shame is that the attendees who were sober enough to acknowledge the singer onstage either didn’t know who she is or they didn’t care. It’s a point not lost on Mann as she threw her guitar over her shoulder and casually interrupted the chatter to introduce herself in the same dry wit that massages the backbone of her songwriting: “Hello. I’m your first performer of the evening. My name’s Aimee Mann in case you missed that part. I’m just going to play while you guys are finding your seats and uncorking your wine bottles.”
Like her best songs, Mann is quick to turn the sour moment into a sweet melody that resurrects the spirit of the night for those who are lucky enough to sit in the pavilion, protected under her gaze that gives a hall monitor's eye to those who even dare to walk in late.
Dressed in blue jeans, a blue vest, and matching scarf, Mann's wares could have, on this night, been accessories for a mood ring, reinforced by the matching T-shirts she and her guitarist wore featuring a slapstick character with an expressive tongue. The choice was not so much obvious as it was shameless self promotion — the cover art from Mann's newest release, @#%&*! Smilers (Superego), that got the show started with its second track, “Stranger into Starman,” and continued with other newbies like “Thirty One Today,” and the single, “Freeway.”
With her angelic wisps of blonde hair pushed aside, Mann’s passion ignited behind her icy eyes. Throughout her 50-minute set, she indulged the crowd with refined classics like "Wise Up" and the decade-old Magnolia soundtrack’s "Save Me," and cult favorites "That’s Just What You Are," and "How Am I Different." Her performance was the best it has been in years, with a voice that, just like the wine bottles littering the lawn, had been aged to perfection and delivered with outright brass.
The night’s turning point came just before the end of Mann's 12-song set, with a stellar acoustic rearrangement of "Red Vines" that blackened the stage and left the crowd with a one-woman show. As Mann blindly strummed, the grasp of her fingers reached out for the crowd and gently pushed each person forward in a moment of silent awe. By the end of the night, it had awarded her with a standing ovation, and, if just for a moment, a @#%&*! smile.
Issue #35
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