Always a formidable performer, Ani DiFranco was, if possible, even more confident and willing to expand her musical range during her appearance here, the first of her two sold-out dates.

She has never been a conventional folkie -- there's an appealing spikeyness to her simply constructed songs, her much improved guitar-playing has a muscular chunkiness, and she is just as likely to contort her voice into Yoko Ono-ish yelps as to sing in her more natural, Joni Mitchell soprano.

But her 90-minute performance, backed by drummers Andy Stochansky and Jason Mercer, found her edging toward an airy, bare-bones funk that, with her staccato, speech-like phrasing and game attempts at rapping resembled the boho grooviness of Soul Coughing.

There's no doubt her audience is willing to follow wherever DiFranco's muse takes her. Their identification with DiFranco -- whether based on her gender, her unabashed sexuality or her stubborn independence -- has an almost Deadhead-like depth and intensity.

An Ani DiFranco show is less a concert than a combination confessional, support group and singalong, with DiFranco, as the cheerfully profane older sister dispensing advice and cautionary tales. Her fans are almost too adoring, greeting a clumsily improvised attempt at beat poetry that ended the show with the same enthusiasm they gave more fully realized renditions of "Napoleon" and "Untoucable Face."