ani came on after a well-received dan bern set that featured her on drums
and andy/jason on backing vocals for one song. Dan left us all fulfilling
our responsibility to the folk song by murmuring "the aliens fucked the
monkey"--his set was energetic and creative, if completely warped
this was such an incredible night, under the (lack of) nyc stars with a
gentle breeze and so many fans; a powerful show. i hadnt heard "two little
girls" in a long time, and the dylan song was hypnotizing when it came
together--- a woman from the audience got on stage and set her bag down to
play violin (fiddle) with ani. although it took a few moments to come
together, when jason and andy came in, ani's banjo fell into a comfortable
rhythm and the violin hung beautifully inbetween, occasionally cresting the
sound with warm harmony. hard to get over. other than that, the most
outstanding parts of the show for me centered on her spoken word; ani found
patterns of sounds in the least detail of her words and the effect was,
again, spellbinding. yknow, one of those spells you can dance through,
come out of the other side exhausted and spent, and stronger for the energy
traded. i'll stop except to say that i think jason's new garb channels the
funky. and clearly (where's miki?) i'd love a tape.thanks
ramona