Ani-body Listening?

I'm crammed in with all these screaming teenage girls, only about three layers of sweating bodies from the stage. I can barely move, but no matter--I'm transfixed. Ani DiFranco is dipping under electric blue and violet light to the opening strains of "Virtue," from her 1999 release Up Up Up Up Up Up. Suddenly she swings up to the mike, fingers flashing over the strings of her guitar. Her voice alternately cracks with anger and melts with intimacy. She sways as if weaving her entire being into the music, threading herself through the thrust of drums, bass and organ.

The only thing that kept me from becoming totally hypnotized by her penetrating performance was the screeching of hundreds of frenzied fans. They screamed the lyrics in near perfect unison, as if the show was just a festive jukebox of favorite Ani recordings, never mind DiFranco's efforts to flex her artistry outside of the studio mold. In response to altered melodies and new syncopations, they quickly adjusted their howlings and yowled on. It seemed at least one rabid fan cried. "I love you, Ani" or "Ani, you're beautiful" at every pause in the two-hour set and, a handful of times, in the middle of a sparser, slower song. More jarring were comments I heard about how DiFranco looked "good enough to eat" or requests from one fan to another to "get a good picture of her butt."

DiFranco is sometimes picked on for the many songs she's written about herself as an artist with a message and an audience. She doesn't shy from mixing politics and art, and the result is an intensely emotional and articulate cry for those oppressed by their gender, race or sexuality to fight a society that excludes their voices. While skewering criticism that her music is too angry and political, DiFranco's songs have also responded to attacks from extremely possessive listeners who expect her to maintain an image appropriate to their favorite raging Ani DiFranco song. They may know all the words, but how hard do such fans really listen? The same kids who cheered a girl who screamed "FUCK THEM!" in the middle of "Little Plastic Castle" ("People talk/About my image/Like I come in two dimensions/Like lipstick is a sign of my declining mind/Like what I happen to be wearing/The day that someone takes a picture/Is my new statement for all of womankind") later talked through her songs as if she were, a hologram on display, while she sang not ten feet away.

Despite the often over-enthusiastic crowd antics, DiFranco focused on the music and seemed enthusiastic herself. She dodged the flying gifts with grins, reminisced about the Muppet Show, wiggled her nose shrugged her shoulders to the beat and laughed like an absolute goofball. In a more somber moment, DiFrance introduced a new song about clinic violence that addressed the recent bombing of a Birmingham women's clinic and the murder of an abortion doctor, Barnett Slepian, in DiFranco's hometown of Buffalo, New York. The audience was silent as DiFranco described in emotional terms the wounds of a nurse whose legs were shattered by the explosion of nails and screws. She fumbled for words to describe receiving a letter from Slepian's niece after her last show, played in Amherst, where the girl had been moved by DiFranco's performance.

Towards the end of the show, DiFranco introduced her band: Julie Wolf (keyboards and accordion), Jason Mercer (bass) and Darren Han (drums) to an extended introduction of "Jukebox." Wolf joined DiFranco in some improvisational wordplay (how to describe these great musicians?) and DiFranco tried her best to coax Han out from behind his kit to give the crowd a little bit of break dancing (so they've got other talents, too!). As the jam came to a close and DiFranco struck the first rumbling chords to "Jukebox," the audience blasted the stage with a thrilled roar. Organ? Drums? Bass? Hell, the girl with the guitar had everybody in the house behind her.