Princess Fiona Rules Psycho Kingdom:


For Morphizm.com

Fiona Apple is off her rocker.

The diminutive, fairy-like songstress with a glow reminiscent of a nuclear holocaust entertained 6,000 of her biggest fans in a hometown reunion of sorts at the award-winning Greek Theatre in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park on June 24. The Sony Music recording artists followed a strong if not inspiring opening performance by Damien Rice, who was brought to limelight with his 2004 song “The Blower’s Daughter” from the “Closer” soundtrack.

Apple – the daughter of former singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon Maggert, who is best known for Sesame Street and his 1970 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in “Applause” – is an enigma to the tee. She did little to disappoint as she growled and twirled her way through nearly two hours of her greatest hits book-ended by selections from her latest album, “Extraordinary Me,” truly a labor of love for the 5-foot, 2-inch drama queen.

And that’s said with the utmost respect and admiration, and a little bit of repartee, as Apple is not yet 29 and has recorded but three albums spaced out over a decade.

Gloriously and calculatedly insane, Apple is a muse for the lovelorn and the forlorn, singing from the heart on wantonness, regret, and most importantly self-discovery and acceptance.

“I make a fuss about a little thing. The rhyme is losing to the riddling,” she laments on “A Better Version of Me” from Extraordinary, before realizing, “I am likely to miss the main event if I stop to cry and complain again, so I will keep a deliberate pace. Let the damn breeze dry my face. Ooh mister, wait until you see what I plan to be.”

And, ooh mister, what a blueprint.

Pain and frustration oozed from Apple’s lyrics as she battled angel and demon in a freakish multiple-personality dance. It’s truly amazing how a waifish, truly stunning woman, in that surprisingly sexy Haight-Ashbury way, can at one moment spit forth such guttural tones and the next conjure and weave lofty melodies that pierce the heart and tear the eye, all while swaying in front of the crowd in a house dress that reveals her shadowy curvature. She truly suffers for her sins, and those imbibed inside her, while hinting at her perfectly kookie genius.

"Please please please, no more melodies," she sang on Extraorindary's aptly-named "Please Please Please." "They lack impact, they're petty. They've been made up already"

After all, the New York-born siren was already in psychotherapy at age 11. By 13 she was “recovering” from sexual assault, and she was soon on her way to a Los Angeles finishing school where the experiences and no doubt her insanity bubbled up in song. To this day a tattoo adorns her back with the letters “fhw” for “Fiona has wings,” which, as the story goes, was born from a childhood dream where she would exclaim the phrase as while rising into mid-air above her schoolmates.

The resulting pain and withdrawal electrifies her prose amid her piano staccato like a hammer to unyielding concrete. But just as quickly, she rebounds from furious drama queen, complete with horrific Grateful Dead inspired carnie dance moves, and elevates to awe-inspiring melodic talent beyond compare.

Bottom line is, Apple makes herself vulnerable to her fans, and herself, and in doing so proves the immense talent that elevated her to superstar status at 19 following her debut “Tidal” and its anthemic heartbreak tale “Shadow Boxer.” She sang that at the Greek, but, strangely, her heart did not seem into the performance. She almost seemed pissed off, as if she was a girl forced to clean her room before she would be allowed to ride her pony into town.

But, as the night progressed, she gained confidence – and her proper mic level for the cavernous amphitheater – like on the sultry “Slow Like Honey,” bearing her soul more softly, and then again on Tidal’s “Sullen Girl,” rearranged for a classical guitar so masterly performed by pre-opening act Dave Garza, then picking her spots to jack it up a notch and hit the audience over the head with her sexually-charged “Criminal” and the aptly frenetic “Fast as You Can” off her 1999 disc “From the Pawn.” Then she switch-footed the set by testing her jazz legs with Extraordinary’s “Red Red Red” and “Oh Well.”

At one point, and I’m paraphrasing here, Apple told her fans, “I don’t eat meat, but if I did, I think I would have to go on killing it for days,” before admitting the doozy made little sense to anyone but the people inside her own head.

Fiona Apple is entirely individualistic at the same time eerily communal, sharing what’s in her heart and on her mind at a moment’s notice. And her fans love her for it.