"They have better cheese."

Not to be outdone, Mr. Stochansky volunteered his observation about the urinary habits of european, male music festival-goers:

"There was ALWAYS about 20 to 30 guys pissing in the open."

This comment, however, did not seem to provoke any such similar behavior that night from the considerable number of males present. Hmmm.

Ani and crew ripped through many of her own standards playing several refreshing new songs, including one with a blue-grass sound, and finishing with two encores:

"In or Out" and "Both Hands".

Ani walked off the stage between encores clutching her side [exhausted?!].

During the final encore, she was suprised by a helium-filled, mylar, butterfly balloon and several bouquets of flowers, including a dandy bunch of petite sunflowers, which she merrily walked away with in her arms clutch.

It was a pleasant evening, and my only regret is that I missed the show's first few opening songs.

Hair color: bright green, see the cover of "Spin" magazine

Opening band: a trio by the name of Connie-something, presumably named for the singer who fronts them. Nothing to write home about--opinions among my friends varied from "OK" to "really annoying." I really wondered where and why they got these folks to open for Ani.

Ani's show was great--not one of the best three I've seen, but solidly in the pack behind that. She played very little from Dilate, and at some point when someone requested a song (I couldn't hear what, but I bet it was Untouchable Face) she said (paraphrasing) "oh man, that song's so old, I'm so beyond that. you know, I was just totally self-absorbed when I did that album, and I'm over it now."

Ani also ragged on Europe a bunch, saying how she couldn't help but feel patriotic when she came back to America. She went on a major rant about the electronic music (euro-dance she called it) at all the festivals she played at, and how it's lame for people to just play prerecorded music on stage; as a folk singer, she feels people share something special by playing their instruments for each other. Andy shared his experience of Europe: "there were just men pissing everywhere. you know, there'd be a line of 30 men pissing somewhere, and one time I saw a woman go up to this man who was pissing and ask for a light. that just blew me away."

Sara Lee wasn't there: Ani has a new bass player dude, whose name I forgot. (She introduced him but didn't say anything about his background or why Sara left.) His bit of soloing didn't amount to much, but I did like his contribution to the overall sound... while I never felt that Sara added anything. It may just have been that the soundmix was particularly good: I had no trouble understanding all the lyrics to the new stuff she did.

Sara Lee wasn't there: Ani has a new bass player dude, whose name I forgot. (She introduced him but didn't say anything about his background or why Sara left.) His bit of soloing didn't amount to much, but I did like his contribution to the overall sound... while I never felt that Sara added anything. It may just have been that the soundmix was particularly good: I had no trouble understanding all the lyrics to the new stuff she did.

Speaking of which: she did a new poem, to a beat that reminded me a lot of Coming Up, and one totally new song. She played Gravel (which has been running in my head ever since) and Glass House, and I think one other new song, though I'm not sure anymore now. Otherwise: Napoleon, Shameless, Anticipate, Worthy, my IQ, 32 Flavors, Letter to a John, In or Out, Fire Door, The Slant, Cradle, Shy, Both Hands, maybe one or two other things that I can't think of offhand. No The Diner, no medley, no Overlap... but I was very happy.

An amusing anecdote:

Someone in the crowd had a butterfly balloon, about a foot to each side and painted in psychedelic colors, with lots of purple. They mostly kept it down, but it floated up a couple of times.

Between the two encores, they managed to get it to the stage, anchored down by something heavy enough to not let the butterfly drift off; the anchor was lying somewhere between Ani's monitors.

The second encore was Both Hands; Ani came out by herself, and launched into it with a lot of intensity. After the first verse, she opened her eyes and WHAAAAA! a giant butterfly! So much for concentration. It was both hilarious and really annoying, though she got her composure back pretty quickly and continued on--afterwards Ani made a point of getting the balloon, and stomped off-stage with it. I'd really like to have a photo of that image: Ani stomping off, flowers in one hand, psychedelic butterfly balloon in the other...

Sooo, I took a friend who had never been to an Ani concert before and she was an instant convert. I'm still trying to get her to stop calling our favorite folksinger "Annie," though... sigh. But the concert was brilliant. She opened with My IQ, during which she took the wrapping from a bouquet of flowers given to her by someone in the audience, crumpled it into a ball, and stuffed it up the front of her dress so that she looked vaguely pregnant, then said, "I just LOOOVE my new heterosexual lifestyle!" I was rolling. Then we had Fire Door (yay!), Gravel, Willing to Fight... and now my memory is starting to fail me. She did 32 Flavors, In or Out, Shameless, Shy, That Night, Both Hands, Swan Dive, Independence, Napoleon, and a buncha other songs, not at all in that order. She did Independence all by herself, and Jason never changed instruments.

She seemed to be pretty happy, and told a pretty funny story about doing an interview in Spain where she was asked what she meant when she called herself a "mangy little whore." She also made it pretty clear that she's not interested in playing most of her songs from Dilate anymore.

So, the show was great, the crowd was great. People were very cool about not yelling obnoxious things or singing along with the songs at the top of their lungs. There was one strange and amusing crowd-related occurrence, though... when Ani was singing Both Hands, someone near the front of the stage let a large butterfly-shaped balloon drift toward the stage. When Ani opened her eyes at the end of the first verse, it was positioned right above the mic directly in front of her face. She did a little mock screaming, the said, "okay, I'm going to close my eyes again now, and we'll see what appears after the second verse".