5th June, 2003

In the last couple of weeks I’ve covered performances by some of the very best live artists. The run started with Radiohead in Manchester, and then continued with Maria Mckee in Liverpool and Metallica at Donington (plus other great metal bands including Disturbed, Stone Sour and Audioslave). So it’s appropriate that tonight I’m reviewing arguably the most talented (and independent) female singer/songwriter to come out of the USA in the last twenty years.

Ani DiFranco is a music phenomena who, without the support of a corporate record label (big or small), has succeeded like few others. She’s garnered a worldwide fan base and, through her own Righteous Babe label, has sustained a high and growing record sales level over a career spanning fifteen years. It’s been a hard and long road but anyone who has seen her live shows will understand why this young and supremely talented woman has succeeded. This particular performence would be slightly different in that DiFranco would be playing without her trusty band and with only her five or six Alvarez acoustic guitars as company. She was supported by another maverick who is now signed to DiFranco’s label. Hamell On Trial is a singer/songwriter with a unique style, huge talent and looks to kill (i.e. he looks like a bare-fist boxer). It promised to be an interesting night…

Hamell On Trial

Hamell appeared with his ancient and heavily worn acoustic and wool hat (discarded after the first song to reveal a head as bald as a baby’s bottom). He is one of the most expressive singer/songwriters you’ll ever see, both in his songwriting and physical performance. He involved the audience initially by explaining the songs and flinging a few insults out to spice things up. And the audience loved it. He sang and talked about love, war and police arrest, while his facial expressions added graphic reality to sentiments expressed. And that guitar, with a bass tune the like of which I don’t think I’ve ever heard before, plundered attention.

During one of his angrier songs he got the crowd to shout the chorus of, ‘Fuck you’, that even the most respectable looking punters put heart and soul into singing. You remember how the Pink Panther used to sneak around in the films on tiptoe? Well that’s what this guy did as he moved around the stage. At one point he went to the front of the stage to strike a pose for photographers while shaking his head and making strange vocal sounds. Hamell’s songs are great and, combined with his dramatic physical performances, are compelling and magnetic. A wonderful performance and I suspect that few artists could provide DiFranco with a more inspiring and welcoming audience warm-up.

Ani DiFranco

From icy cool, white stage lighting it changed to reddish hues as a sparkling and immaculate DiFranco entered the arena to massive applause from the capacity crowd of around 1,000 fans. That magical smile served notice that she’s was there for the fans, and was going to give it heaps. And that’s precisely what happened as she opened with older classics Shy and Educated; familiar songs to further break the ice. It was a clever move and worked a treat as the fans went wild. A couple of weeks ago I reviewed a Goldfrapp performance on the same stage and concluded that she lacked that vital charisma to fully involve the audience. She should have been in the audience to see how it’s done. There has to be genuine respect for punters, and the desire to communicate messages from the heart. This is where Goldfrapp (despite her enormous vocal talent) fails and where artists like Hamell and DiFranco excel.

This is the first time I have seen DiFranco perform without her band and it seemed to provide her with more freedom in playing material from her very early days. Gravel and Swan Song are two of her finest older songs and were sung with total commitment and unbridled passion. In the past few weeks I’ve witnessed what I thought was ultimate audience acclaim and warmth. I hadn’t. I have now. This mixed age audience, that included a substantial number of higher/further education students, connected with the artist in a major and complete way.

With flashing eyes and weaving body movements she launched into You Each Time and 2 Little Girls changing guitars with each song performed in her customery style. In all I counted five different guitars used which are from legendary USA maker Alvarez. They were all totally different and when presented with a beautiful example with unusual scolloped holes and immaculate pale wood construction, DiFranco commented how strange it looked. To me it looked a thing of utter beauty. She really hammers the strings of her guitar and I suspect this is one reason why there are so many guitars, and why each is tuned after every song.

It had been a masterful performance and the set list has been inspirational. It got even better. As she talked to the audience and got loud response, I wondered when new material from the latest album, EVOLVE, would materialise. And, on cue, it did, starting with Second Intermission. EVOLVE is one of DiFranco’s masterpieces and this is one of my highlights from it. Her delivery of every song was such that if you were deaf you could have a pretty accurate stab at what the song was communicating. Such is the uniquely expressive way that she performs.

Next up was Raincheck which I didn’t recognise and then another favourite raises its beautiful head, Anticipate. Lyrically, DiFranco has immense poetic strength and at times strong humour, but her songwriting has one absolutely fundamental element that ‘opens the door’. That something is her sensitivity to melody and her uncanny ability to embed them into almost every song she writes, but in such a way that doesn’t overpower (in the way that so much pop is ‘computed’ now to do). And it’s this balance between lyrical and melodic strength that I find so compelling. Add the level of ability and sincerity we all witnessed and it became clear why she is such a formidable artist.

As we reached the climax of an incredible show, DiFranco talked feminism (see our Women Who Rock interview to get the gist of what she said), politics, and crass stupidity. She described how democracy in the land she loves has been eroded to worrying levels and proceeded to recite a poem she wrote after some of the worst episodes in America’s recent history (we have the full poem on Shanestir).

The recital resulted in thunderous applause as the poem was recognised as possessing sentiments that echo the UK’s building political climate, and the feelings of many about Bush and his buddies. Then Animal Before Phase from the new album. I made another mental note to check my CDs at home for yet another unrecognised title that followed, Grandcanyon.

The final song was Evolve and completed a set list of immense diversity, history and brilliance. The lights go down and signalled an unrelenting communal demand for more. DiFranco appeared for one more song called Names And Dates before saying goodbye for another six months.

Much of what I have seen had been through a camera lens and with so many special DiFranco moments, my trigger finger hardly stopped working. And it pretty well summed up a very special night for both me, and the audience that milled around after the show in the hope of seeing the lady or finding a guitar pick. A friend came over to say goodbye to me and stated that she was deeply moved by this, her first experience of DiFranco live. She told me that she had to fight back the tears and as I looked into her eyes I knew she was telling the truth.

Words alone cannot possibly do justice to this performance. As I wandered back to the car I hoped that my pictures wwould be good enough to complete the story on probably the finest performance by a singer/songwriter I had ever seen. The little lady done good, very good…