Sometimes, when I go to a concert, I can't wait for it to be over. I buy the tickets, pay the TicketMaster surcharge, have a vodka dinner, put on comfortable shoes, and skip off to the concert hall, secretly hoping it won't go on too long. I want one great encore, not three desperate ones. I don't want to be a lab rat for new songs; I want to hear my favorite songs—and maybe an obscure B-side or cover of a Talking Heads or Beyoncé tune. What, then, could be more ideal than a night of Liz Phair running straight through Exile in Guyville at the somewhat intimate Hiro Ballroom in honor of the album's 15th anniversary?

After kicking things off with "6'1" and "Help Me Mary," the notoriously shy performer settled into her groove. "This is awesome," she said, looking out at the audience, a sea of late 20- and 30-somethings prone to embarrassing exclamations of love throughout her set. "Liz, you have the the voice of a fairy," someone cried. And the love wasn't just girl on girl—it was now-chubby-ish dudes in loafers and pleated pant-fronts on girl, too.

As Liz blew through the 18 songs on Guyville, all sounding better than ever (well, except maybe the sad, sparse "Gunshy"), it was hard not to get wistfully nostalgic for when ladies rocked out rather than pluck along to the musical equivalents of Sex and the City voiceovers. Phair's 15-year-old songs took on a new, warmly ironic layer. If this collection of songs was the only good thing she'd ever done, and would ever do (which is the opinion of some here, but not this writer), it didn't matter. They were more than enough. They didn't sound a bit dated; they seemed perfectly preserved and carefully archived.

As she sang the opening lines of "Strange Loop"—"The fire you like so much in me / is the mark of someone adamantly free"—I got nervous. It was encore time, and a potential minefield. She began with the first song off of Whipsmart, "Chopsticks." A wise choice. People suddenly wondered if she might play the whole second album. She didn't. Instead, it was time for a new song.

Liz seemed markedly tense for the first time, the weight of her ill-received later albums weighing down her voice. But as she got further into the song, she relaxed a bit and it didn't sound half bad—if anything, this was a safe place. Suddenly, though, it was last-song time. She closed with "Polyester Bride" from Whitechocolatespaceegg, which was a safe choice in the best of ways—a radio friendly classic off her third album, it felt like something of a gift to hear it live. Why not just give the people what they want, she seemed to say, as if echoing the anti-pretentious-music-hipster-dude ethos at the heart of Exile in Guyville. It would have been nice to hear a few more songs, especially a cover or two, but Liz had already done more than enough.