By 10am, I have accomplished all of these things and Mark and I are heading to Albuquerque to the conference and more importantly, the Ani concert. We arrive at the conference around 1pm and we get out of the conference around 2:30pm. Now, we must find the Hiland Theater!

We stumble into the Hiland theater around 3pm and Christal is already in line. No tickets yet, though. We meet a guy from Chicago named Larry, a girl named Jenn who has been following Ani since the Salt Lake City show, and two girls from New Jersey. We have excellent places in line, and *if* we get tickets, we'll have killer seats (general admission!).

It starts getting dark, and cold. We have bought one ticket, we need two more! The line is starting to grow, and more people who need tickets are showing up. Some even have signs: "Need Ani Tickets". Oh no! Competition! It is already 6pm, and we only have one ticket! Christal moves to the back of the line to canvas for tickets, Mark and I stay near the front to do the same, although, Mark and I aren't that outgoing. We both have long hair, dress in dark colors, are somewhat shy and we don't look very approachable. So we aren't very successful at the ticket hunt.

At 7:00pm the doors open. We have two tickets, now. Since Christal is more successful at the ticket gathering, Mark and I decide to go in and get seats. Christal will continue the search, and we'll hope that she can get in. If she hasn't joined us in an hour, we'll leave, and split the loss. No show for any of us. All for one, one for all.

Mark and I get excellent seats in the middle of the fourth row. We save a seat for Christal and nervously wait for her to arrive. Jenn and Larry are in front of us on the 2nd row. Jenn is amazed that we'd leave the show, if Christal doesn't score another ticket. After about 30 minutes, I go out to check on Christal. Still no ticket. It is so frustrating. We have great seats, and we may not even stay in them! I go back inside to talk to Mark. After a few minutes, I decide I need to smoke, so I head back out into the cold wet night. Christal just found a ticket! I can't believe it. We are gonna get to stay and see this amazing concert.

The opening act is a master of harmonica and slide guitar. He only does 3 or four songs. I wish he'd play longer. Ani comes out and starts the show with "Gravel". We are standing the whole show, and it turns out to be one of the best concerts I've ever seen. The crowd has to be the most polite and well-behaved of any show. All the people were very nice and respectful. Ani's performance is passionate, and even though this is nearing the end of the tour it sounds fresh. Several times during the show Ani takes time out for amusing banter with the audience. During one break, Ani begins talking seriously about how touring isn't so much fun anymore, or at least it's way different than it used to be. It sounded like she was getting a little tired of this tour, and might be ready to get back home and take a break. Her performance didn't seem tired in the least. She did a cool sort of trip-hop intro to "Shameless" which was very smooth. Her performance of "Napoleon" was furious, and emotionally affecting. Also on her playlist was "Anticipate", "The Slant", "In or Out", "Worthy", "Overlap", "Every State Line" and more. She played everything! Not really. I can't recall all the songs, but she *didn't* do a few that I was hoping for such as "Not a Pretty Girl", or "Out of Habit". This show was better than any concert I have ever attended. I have seen a lot of concerts, too. Ani rules! Her performance is more powerful than Ministry, more passionate than Nirvana and more intelligent than Elvis Costello.

I was giddy when I left the theater. Many people were hanging around outside, but Mark, Christal and I had already paid our dues to the rainy cold parking lot earlier in the day when we were waiting in line. So, instead of hoping for a possible glimpse of Ani in her rush to the bus, we decided to go to a warm bar with cold beer and have a private toast to Ani and our successful adventure.