Sticks and Stones

Concert Review

Ani DiFranco
(and Jesse Harris)
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Orpheum Theatre, Madison, WI
or "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words have much more power."

Can you remember the first time a song lyric really spoke to you? What was it?

It's, of course, completely valid to listen to music for music's sake -- to be carried away by melody or dancing to a groove or rocking out to distortion -- But there's a whole new level added to music with lyrics that make you think or make you connect.

Remember that feeling when you felt that song was written just for you? It described your pain? Your passion? That part of life that you felt no one viewed the way you do? And in that release, you're no longer alone. You are connected and understood. You are vindicated. That thing inside that just wouldn't surface is suddenly verbalized and you can finally let it go.


Then also, there's the power in words that can move people to action. It's a dangerous groupthink, sure, with the potential to incite riots or revolutions. But we can't deny the solidarity and motivation in a well crafted, chanted phrase. Song lyrics can be a sort of grass roots battle cry, galvanizing the public by raising awareness in a manner in which people can relate.

And then there's the lyrical braingasm. The point where your mind is blown by a whole new way of looking at something. A turn of phrase so poetically concise and yet beautiful, that you feel you never understood life before now. This piece of you is intimate and hidden, and if you share it with someone carelessly, it may break. But all you want in the world is for someone else to understand.

For me, all these expressions started with Ani DiFranco. For all the cliched stereotypes she is purported to represent, she is a lyrical master first. Well-versed in metaphor and poetry, she speaks to me in words so clearly that no other artist has yet to capture. Say what you will about the typical Ani fan: rude, loud, obnoxious, left-wing, alternative-lifestyled, radical feminist, angry punk, unwashed pierced hippy, etc... and fittingly, the Madison show had them all... but the fact is that Ani is actually an artist that has something to say which polarizes the crowd. You can't listen without being affected and forming an opinion. There's no middle of the road fan who could go either way on liking her. If you're an Ani fan, you are a major Ani fan. And that kind of effect is a credit to her talent.

Thursday's show saw her more excited and the crowd more excitable than other times I've seen her. She toured with an accompaning xylaphone/percussion player and an upright bassist, both of which are prominantly featured on her latest album "Reprieve." But her setlist spanned her whole discography -- which for someone who independently put out an album every year since 1990, that's saying a lot.

10/12/06 Setlist:
knuckle down
manhole
studying stones
done wrong
napoleon
lag time
fuel
animal
unrequited
half-a$$ed
decree
anticipate
78% H2O
nicotine
no place (new)
shameless

gravel
hypnotized

And with her pregnancy obviously showing now, her image has noticably softened. Her hair calm and layered -- motherly. Her clothes mild and grown up. But besides leading the feminist revolution into daycare, she has not quelled her outspoken advocacy for all manner of solveable injustices. Some of her best "soapbox" moments included the tale of a few decades ago, when the feminst revolution was real and tangible and not buried in the forgotten underground as it is now. But she relates that even then, there was the notion that a woman will never be president because there will be a certain time of the month when she will be "irrational" and just hit the red button. And as amusing as that is, regardless of your stance on that subject, I couldn't help but agree when she said that what is truly "irrational" is the act of one nation warring against another. But a woman sitting in front of the news at night and bawling her eyes out just makes sense.

If you can understand the passionate irony and the indelible truth in that statement, then I am once again reassured that I am not alone in being moved by the power of words. What words have moved you?

You Had Time
Grey
Little Plastic Castle
Both Hands
School Night
Both Hands (Raining Jane)

Posted by heydomsar
2006-10-16

go back | random brainstorm | go forth

Rachel Ray - 2009-05-03
The cold wind was the reason - 2009-03-02
The Collected Wisdom of Angela Chase - 2009-02-15
All's well that ends well. - 2009-01-07
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - 2008-10-04

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