Suzanne Vega
Supported by Sara Storer
Where: The Palms at Crown, tonight and tomorrow night
Tickets: $99.50.
Bookings: 1300 795 012.

A blogger queries whether Suzanne Vega ever smiles. A reviewer describes her as an "unobtainable ice maiden". Yep, Suzanne Vega is still an inscrutable singer-songwriter.

And this week, "the high priestess of coffee-shop yuppiedom" -- as another observer once called her -- is performing at Crown.

"I haven't been to Oz for around 14 years," she says. "I'm not like other female artists, though. I don't need to do things like put scarves around lights to make me feel comfortable."

Vega started as an acoustic-guitar-playing waif in Greenwich Village cafes, graduated to experimental, electric sounds -- which demonstrated she could rock as well as pluck -- and has now progressed to full-blown orchestration.

She grabbed the world's attention in the mid-80s with two hit singles: Luka, a chilling song about domestic child abuse; and Tom's Diner, which celebrated the place where she and the man she would eventually marry first met.

There have been long breaks between albums: Beauty & Crime, released last year, was Vega's first collection of new songs in six years.

But she has not been idle. In August 2006, Vega became the first major recording artist to perform live in avatar form in the online virtual world called Second Life.

It was an unexpectedly personal encounter, she says, "because I could see people and read what they were choosing to reveal about themselves, which I can't do in reality.

"I can look at someone's face when I'm performing on stage, but I have no idea what they're thinking."

Vega's creative output is dictated by the demands of her 13-year-old daughter, Ruby, who she proudly boasts is a talented musician.

"I've learned to become very disciplined," she says.

Beauty & Crime, which highlights Vega's love affair with New York, was written during these snatched moments.

"I wanted to write a group of songs that had 9/11 as the backdrop because I felt it was something I couldn't ignore," she says.

Vega is passionate about human rights, but until she "figures out how to write a political song well", she is giving them a wide berth.

Her yardstick is Bob Dylan's 1960s anthem, Masters of War.

"If I can learn to do something like that, I'll write my political song," she says. "I love poetry in music and until I can make a political song poetic, I'm not interested in writing one."