Those comments went through my head when Aimee Mann and her band walked on stage Saturday night. Led by a fanfare of music I can only call "South Pacific as reimagined by Jon Brion", Mann took to the stage in a well cut grey pinstripe suit and vest. Her band was similarly attired in mustard yellows and browns. I don't think I've ever seen a band look this nice on stage outside of a jazz venue. My next thought was about professional rock musicians, which Mann and her band are. The professional rock musician is an odd bird. I don't mean superstars like Aerosmith, who want to be rock stars more than musical acts, but individual singers and bands who manage to make a good living from popular music. Matthew Sweet is a good example. Sweet is a fine songwriter and musician. Why Sweet songs like "Come to California" or "Time Capsule" didn't catch on like "Girlfriend" is a question for sociologists, but Sweet has been making music and paying his bills with the fruits of his labor since the mid-1980s. Aimee Mann is a self-proclaimed professional musician, and the title fits her. Mann meets my image of a great songwriter: her melodies leave an impression in your ears, her lyrics are like conversations you readily remember, and her song-form is impeccable. Anyone with a talent and sense of craft such as Mann's should be able to make her living from music. I only have one beef with the professionals: more often than not, they can't pull off a live show. I am of the mindset that a live performance should be different from the record. I don't ask for complete reworkings, but new arrangements or tempo changes are appreciated. I wasn't expecting Mann songs like "Driving Sideways" or "Deathly" to be reinterpreted as speed metal dirges, but I was hoping for fresher takes on items from her back catalog. I ended up fifty-fifty for the night.

Opening with the quip, "I have a new record out. It's my most cheerful," Mann launched into a fairly rote version of "The Moth" from said newly-released album, Lost in Space. One of the aspects of Lost in Space that has gone unnoticed in the reviews is how good a "headphone" album it is. Mann's guitarist and producer, Michael Lockwood, filled in the spaces around Mann's voice with odd keyboard squeaks and guitars drenched in echoes that come back through the headphones to your ears in odd little waves. Luckily, Lockwood brought his full kit on tour with him. First demonstrated with "The Moth" and appearing throughout the set thereafter, Lockwood's slide guitar work was a great psychedelic counter-measure.

As the band coasted through "Calling it Quits", "Sugarcoated" and "Humpty Dumpty", I couldn't help but feel detached, as I was mindful of the sound mix. It was too perfect, with exact separation between each instrument and the voices. There was little bleed-though in the sound, and, worst of all, the drums lacked bite. The Riviera is a big hall with odd acoustics, but the sound setup was like this by design. Mann's tour is a production. Each night needs to be like the last, and the only way to achieve something this exact is to control as many variables as you can, down to the last detail. Some might like this, but I find concerts with sound this "groomed" to be sterile. Still, I forgot my gripe once the song "Susan" started. From Bachelor Number Two, "Susan" has to be one of the best "the affair is over" songs girded by references to explosives ever put to tape.

Perhaps it was "Susan", as bass player Paul Bryan claimed to have smelt smoke, but somewhere between "Amateur" and "Wise Up", a high pitched hum escaped from some piece of equipment on stage. After a pause to correct the problem, the band moved on, but the attitude was different. Perhaps they had warmed up for the night, or maybe the technical glitch threw off their sense of timing, but they began mucking things up. Nothing serious, but a touch of sloppiness and whimsy made its way into the proceedings. Odd as it is, fucking up seemed to have been the thing that was necessary to really get Mann and her band going. The main set ended in a crescendo with raved-up versions of "Pavlov's Bell" and "Longshot".

The encore should rightfully have been called a second set, as it stretched to six songs. Mann was in good form, joking with her band and the audience between songs, the best moments being the similarities between Lockwood and Charles Nelsen Reilly and Mann's inability to remember her own songs. "Fourth of July" was done as a solo number, with Mann's voice the key element. Mann is not a belter, but she can put a lot of power behind a lyric, and it was a pleasure to hear her voice removed from the keyboards and drums. "Red Vines" was a gentle, full band follow up. In response to repeated requests from the crowd, Mann fumbled through one of the best songs from Lost in Space, "Invisible Ink". I can accept it when bands say they don't know their own songs -- perhaps the tunes in question were crafted in the studio, or recorded years prior -- but I can't say I understand it. It's strange to think that a creator doesn't know her own work. According to Mann's introduction, it happens. She made a concerted attempt at the song, though, and the audience responded in kind, with impromptu hand-clapping during the last verse.

"You're getting fucking 'Voices Carry,' and you're going to like it."

With that, the band launched into a moody, slow-tempo version of Mann's Til Tuesday hit. I didn't expect her to play the song, nor did I expect anything this radical, based on how the night had gone. Imagine Elvis Costello circa All This Useless Beauty performing the song, and you'll have an idea of what it sounded like. It was quite compelling. A short, rapid-fire cover of "Freebird" followed, breaking the spell, its improvised lyrics ending in laughter. A slapdash "Deathly" closed the set and the night.

It was a pleasure to finally see Mann in person. My wife and I both go through periods where her records don't leave the CD player, yet neither one of us had ever made it to a performance before. I can't say I would rush out to see Mann again, as her performance style is not my cup of tea, but I'm grateful to have done it at least once. It's nice to have a physical reference for the craftsman whose songs get caught in my head.

Article by Jason Broccardo. Photos by Lisa Broccardo.