The Forum, Kentish Town, London, England 21st February 1998

Setlist Photos Tape SETLIST PHOTO PHOTOS YES

Reuven's review

Aniway, I just got back from a week's vacation in London. To my shock, on my first day there, I found out that Ani would be playing on my last day there (I might have phreaked out some passerbys). Figured with London's musical preference for club music and Oasis, I had a clear shot for the front row too. To my surprise, I was wrong, when I bought my ticket, the standing room area had already sold out, and when I got there, the line wrapped around the building (nothing like the NYC lines, but still) (found out later that it was mostly Americans).

This was my 8th time seeing her and it was probably the best one yet. As talkative as she usually is, this became story night. Among the highlights:

Talking about how music has moved toward complaining. In the 50's "it was all about love and shit," "love, love me doo"..then in the 60's, people started to realize that life is fucked up, and in the 70's it continued, now we have grunge, rap, and such, and me...continued talking about how our generation is born with the disillusion of how screwed up everything is, then someone from the audience yelled that we need to fix it. "Yeah, we need to fix it, and you fix it with...," then someone from the balcony yelled out "the Spice Girls." The whole place exploded, especially Ani who was cracking up all over the stage.

Ani talking about doing all these feminist shows back before she made her fortune as a shower curtain salesMAN, which Andy picked up on. She started talking about the pre-Jason days when Andy and her used to drive insane lengths to play all these festivals. One night they were driving from Chicago, well, Andy was driving, since he is the guy and well, couldn't play at the festival. After a while, waking up from semi-sleep, she herd weird sounds from the gravel, kind of like backing up on a highway. Realizing that Andy wasn't going to make it, she took the wheel and drove the rest of the way. When they got to the festival - "I drove up and see all these dykes stretching out on a softball field" - and she woke up Andy with a "keep it in your pants." They went up to the registration booth, Andy sleepy-faced hiding behind her, when the militant receptionist asked "Does your friend register as a woman?" (everyone cracks up) Andy: "I went to many interesting workshops, like 'Creative ways to use menstrual blood'"

There were many more (like staying in the same hotel as Madonna - "let me tell you, the walls are thin"), but this is long enough...

Reuven