It’s usually a challenge to try to explain my music fandom to people. It’s mainly because people either a) don’t know me very well and don’t understand music or b) know me well and do understand music. Let me explain. Let’s say I tell someone that I’m going to the Motley Crue/Aerosmith show later this week. The person who doesn’t know me well will go “Oh yeah, you go to a lot of shows” while anyone who knows me will go “What are you insane?” Likewise, if I said I spent tonight seeing Ani Difranco the non-music fan will go “Who?” while the music fan will go “What are you insane?”
Yep, tonight was the night of my annual Ani Difranco concert. And for the record, I’m not going to the Motley Crue/Aerosmith double bill, even though it would be really easy to make fun of the crowd.
I at least have some explanation as to how I continually find myself at Ani shows. Or at least it’s a collection of bad ideas, which is probably more likely. Here is my story and I’m sticking to it. A few years back I went out with a girl who was a big Ani fan. She made me listen to the CDs and they are good. Didn’t change my life but I’ve heard worse. Events happened, we broke up, she stated very explicitly that she never wanted to talk to me again but somehow we remained friends. So I decide to go see Ani in an attempt to impress her. No matter how many times I tell this story, it still doesn’t make sense.
Well, that was three years ago and I’ve seen Ani twice since then. Now I go because it is a very impressive show and always a surprisingly good time. I can appreciate the musicianship, it’s nice to be around people who have the same political views as mine, and the crowd isn’t something I see every day. I’ll be honest, I look very out of place at the show, what with the Y chromosome an all. When you are surrounded by people who are anti-establishment and you pretty much embody the establishment things can get a little testy. But no one has ever bothered me and I’m nice enough to not stand in front of people who are a foot shorter than me. Plus, it gives me a great opportunity to trend watch (it looks like the girl with dreadlocks look is finally going out of style.)
Anyway, tonight was a nice little show. Ani is six months pregnant (which even though I knew that going in is still a bit disconcerting when you actually see it) and that kept her from bouncing around the stage like she usually does. She is still very intense on stage, whereas a lot of other singers close their eyes or stare up at the ceiling when they sing she looks straight out at the audience and doesn’t blink. Her music is less verse chorus verse and more spoken word poetry set to an unconventional guitar track, which given that I find lyrics and emotion to be the most important pieces of music makes for a good experience. She does have this tendency to change guitars after every song. I’ve yet to figure out if this is because a) every song is in a different key and she needs to change guitars constantly or b) she’s never figured out how to tune a guitar.
All in all, it was just a good night. I’ve gone to something like one hundred concerts over the past three years and while Ani’s shows have never been the best that I’ve seen they’ve never been one of the worst. They’ve always been really good shows that when I tell people that I went to the show causes the best reactions. Sometimes that is all you could hope for on a Monday night. I mean, it’s not like the Bears were going to come back after being down twenty points.
(Wait a minute, you mean they did come back?)
(And won without scoring a touchdown on offense?)
(And I missed this?)
(Sigh)
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