Ani DiFranco Live Review @ Shepherds Bush Empire (London) - 21 Oct 2007

Ani DiFranco Live Review @ Shepherds Bush Empire (London) - 21 Oct 2007

Ani DiFranco

Live Review

Ani DiFranco is the most unusual of artists: she's sold well internationally, established a selection of 16 genre hopping back-catalogue albums and managed that whole 'critically acclaimed' thing that so many artists struggle to pull off. But you try and tell that to my friends: I wouldn't have been able to pay any of them to take the plus one to this gig: a fact I choose to take as an assessment of the music, rather than my company. The thing is, despite all this success, very few people (myself included) seem to know any of her songs. That's quite a feat, though perhaps one she should be considerably less proud of.

But as rare an occurrence as meeting her fans 'in the wild' is, they're a dedicated bunch, bordering on the obsessive. And as an ill-prepared music journalist, I felt quite out of place amidst the sea of die-hard fans excited at the prospect of her first UK tour in quite some time.

The support act was Hammell on Trial, a perfect match for DiFranco's feminist and liberal lyrics thanks to his more anarchistic brand of anti-folk and comedy. He warmed up the crowd magnificently with a song about cunnilingus (lyrics to the effect of 'the muscles of my tongue are so well trained I could use it as a jackhammer' charmingly enough) and a new one which turned out to be about Radiohead's In Rainbows pricing structure. It was lively, energetic and the perfect match for DiFranco who revealed later to being a good friend and huge fan of his.

And with that kind of warm up, the fever pitch when Ms DiFranco reached the stage was predictably overpowering. She powered through a set which was composed mainly of tracks off 3 of her earlier albums. A set-list from the memory of a friend of mine (who, yes, would have taken my plus one if she hadn't taken the journalistically unheard of step of actually buying tickets) informs me that it included Lag time, Man hole, Paradigm, 78% H20, Gravel, You had time, Napoleon, Coming Up, Hypnotized, Sunday Morning, Pixie and 2 little girls. They were all lyrically and musically interesting and immaculately played by DiFranco, her drummer and double bassist.

Unfortunately, while the majority of her back catalogue is rightly much respected, the 3 or 4 new tracks she played were a little 'Alanis Morisette' for my tastes. I swear I thought she was going to tell me that 'It's like raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain on your wedding day' at one point, which I'm sure is a comparison she would never happily welcome. Worse, one new song in particular (which she did point out was 'slightly sarcastic') is so disgustingly sugar-sweet as to cause instant tooth decay in the listener, and has a rhyming structure and lyrics that would make Ed Harcourt draw the line as "too hackneyed". Nonetheless the crowd lapped this, and the other so-so new songs, up like the sycophantic followers they were.

None the less, as just four songs in an impressively long set, overall the music was a picture of consistent quality. With DiFranco engaging the audience with entertaining and often humorous banter, it's hard to focus too much on these negative points. Little as I knew of DiFranco's music before (she didn't play Hurricane or Fuel, to my dismay), I will be sure to dip an exploratory toe into the pleasantly warm waters of her back catalogue: and that has to be as positive an endorsement as I can give.

Alan Martin

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