Tuesday, March 2, 2004

the importance of being Ani

"Maybe you don't like your job
Maybe you didn't get enough sleep
But nobody likes thier job
And nobody got enough sleep
Maybe you just had the worst day of your life
But honey there's no escape
And there's no excuse
So just suck up
Suck and be nice..."

So sings Ani Difranco, whose crazy form I saw perform last evening at the Enmore Theatre. She didn't sing that song, but she sang many others, she bounced on stage a massive-looking guitar (she's 5'2") and expended heaps of energy singing and playing and giving us poetry. She made the little noises (mms and ohs and oh mms) that you hear on the live album, between words, in sentences. At times it didn't seem real and then I would think "Ani Difranco and I are in the same room.." It was just her and her ever-changing guitars, and a lovely white background curtain upon which fuschia lights were projected, and blue ones and and green ones. There would be contrasting colors on her, and then on the stage itself, so the whole stage area was a bunch of vibrant colors and the source of a vibrant voice. A place you didn't want to take your eyes, or your ears from.

I recognized some people on the train on the way home who had been in the row ahead of me. They were looking at their digital camera; a woman with long blond hair and a guy in a blue singlet with a tattoo of a band around his upper forearm, his long blond hair tied back. I couldn't resist, I said, "Did you get any good photos?"

"Oh, no, we were too far back, but we did get this good one-"

And they showed me the photo they'd taken of the massive poster on the outside of the theatre, Ani in black and white under her own name in big letters.

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