Well the ticket did say "Ani Difranco June 20 1998 Rain or Shine".
It Rained.
It shined.
Going to see Ani was defininetly more of an adventure than i bargained for. I arrived at the Historic Battery Park around 2:45 p.m. with my friend April. We sat down on a partitioned section of the sidewalk that was designated "for ticketholders only". It was disgustingly hot and humid; i knew immediately that i was going to burn to a crisp. At 4:10 p.m. the announcement was made that we should start forming more of a line so we got up and started walking. The line was actually pretty wide and because of this April and I got pretty close to the front, i was in there with the frist 75 people or so. From this point on the weather seem to cool down and became almost breezelike. At this point I knew I wasn't going to burn, I was gonna get drenched! Light rain started to come down and I opened up my umbrella and felt pretty dry. The rain stopped soon thereafter. Surprisngly I saw my friend Talya walking by. I knew she was gonna be there b/c she was a huge Ani fan. I got her to jump over the railling and join me and april. She was looking for her friend who she was supposed to meet but could not find. At 5:05 pm they opened the doors (well proverbial doors because as it was a park there were no doors.)
I gave my ticket to the guy who was supposed to scan it in (the tickets came with a bar code for some reason). The thing is, the scanner was not reading the code! I was very upset at this but luckily Talya had an extra ticket ( it was her other friend's who wasn't coming) so she gave me that and used hers. We both got in and ran to meet April who was able to get ahold of space five rows in. The standing area was split into two parts and partitioned off with some steel guard rail for some reason or another.
Then the rain came and washed us all away. At 5:30, a light drizzle, at 5:35 moderate rain, at 5:40 hard rain, and 5:45 the downpour. It rained for 45 straight minutes and even with the umbrellas we all got soaking wet! It was needles to say not the best of times, but we kept an upbeat humor by singing songs that had to with rain. The crowd of people really came together at this point, it semmed like evryone wanted to survive and see Ani.
eventually it stopped raining and in our damp clothes we stood uncomfortably and saw the opening act, the Rebirth Brass Band. They helped boost morale with their swing kindof sound, but boy were there songs long (14 minutes with solos improvs and weird take offs of TLC's waterfalls and Michael Jackson's "Don't stop till you had enough". Oh well!
Finally, 7:45, Ani. This was her song list order as near as I can remember it.
Little Plastic Castle
Fuel
Shy
Two Little Girls
New song (I think its called Up, Up, Up)
Letter to a John
Loom
Pulse (very shortened)
As is
Aniticipate
New Song (come, come away)
Glass House
In or out
another new song (My Country Tis of thee)
Cradle and all
Shameless
ENCORE
Gravel
New Song (don't know the name)
In between the songs Ani talked about mother and father nature conspiring against us (ie the rain) andthanked us for sticking it out despite the rain and even though "you could have gone and played twister or whatever the fuck". She said that us being there listening to her made her job that much more easier. she also mentioned that the mayor of NYC Rudy Gulliani wanted to come there. The audience wasn't happy with that. Ani said "yeah that pretty much how i felt". She said that she felt the war on drugs in NYC was really just a war on poor people ( i disagree i mean it takes money to but drugs and poor people don't have money). One of the new songs was about this and the drug problem in her old NYC neighborhood. She also did an impression of our mayor ("hi my name's Rudy Guliani").
Ani's performance of her songs was incredible and i loved every minute of it. I sang every word of every song i knew. Ani's guitar playing was incredible and as always her talented band mates were top notch. Bassist Jason Mercer, drummer Andy Stochansky and keyboardist Julie (oops didn't catch her last name!) give ani's instrumentation that added oomph
i just wished Ani had played 32 flavors Out of range or Firedoor (although she sound checked firedoor) especially 32 Flavors. I mean how could she not perform her most popular song (IMO)???
Something else that was horrible was all the smoking and pot abuse that was happening! Uggh sometimes i just can't stand that crap!
Post script: After the show though... I checked my shoes and socks and jeans and shirt. They had mud all over them. See water + grass = mud. mud on Ari= muddy Ari. yuck. Thank god the mud came out. :)