The Music We Make

i.

So it goes. The moment she appears on stage, I feel a certain brilliance charging through me, and become aware of the blissful grin that has sprung rambunctiously across my face.

The first time I saw Ani Di Franco perform, in the summer of 1996, her joyful radiance surprised me. What had I been expecting then, knowing as I did a few of her albums just a little, mostly familiar with her proud, reckless strength; her firm, political, no-nonsense lyrics? I remember how her smile and her light but passionate exuberance almost knocked me off my feet.

Here and now, even after years of touring before an ever-expanding international audience, Ani's fresh radiant energy continues to light up the stage. As for me, I just laugh, straight from my belly, at the sweet nuances that are the absolute pleasures of life--at the way the music and the moment have whipped me so shockingly into joy. Now I am here, with the music-makers before me, with the people around me--we are community for one evening, under the dynamic sky that envelopes us all. I give myself to this moment and ride high on the funky rhythms of the opening song.

ii.

Decorating the front pocket of my jeans is an electric blue Righteous Babe Records photo pass, complete with muscle-flexing babe logo. Righteous Babe Records is the proud little Buffalo, New York record company that Ani Di Franco founded at age eighteen in bold protest of the corporate music mess, and in order to create a healthy, local alternative. The magic pass, the rules read, will enable me to hug the stage and photograph the artists during their first three songs, and so I dance on into the designated arena.

Standing so intimately close to the artist, now a spring of sound in guitar and voice, I see a woman working honestly and determinedly at her profession. I witness her surrender to the music. I watch as the words stretch her face open and twist the corners of her mouth, as her body jerks and braces at a handful of staccato.

What I am seeing, I realize in awe, is sacred flow, unbridled effort; the open vulnerability and raw power of one woman; and even more, the power of her surrender.

iii.

Interplay. The audience grooves and applauds, and the band weaves the funk and jazz into which Ani has been flirting in recent years as she builds upon the sturdy folk-punk core of her music. One thing that Ani's music is not is static. The folk-singer has proved prolific at the very least since her first disc at age eighteen, averaging one full-length record per year. Album to album, she steadily adds instruments and effects, themes, characters, experience. Her dynamism as a musician has been known to upset some in her audience who have wanted to hold her to a certain identity of sounds and themes. Some of the valuable lessons that I personally have gained from following Ani's music through the years relate to the beauty of watching another being blossom and grow--celebrating humans as the dynamic creatures that we are, and seeing art as a creative exploration and a testament to that personal growth and expansion. Attending Ani's live concerts always helps to bring me up-to-date, to give me a real feeling for the music-scapes she has visited on her most recent album.

This concert is no exception. I listen as she plays with the words and notes, seemingly more than ever--stretching vowels here, consonants there; her volume ranging from howls to whispers, tones from sweet to sharp, tempo from upbeat to meandering. The set-list mixes new, old, and in-between, with some fresh variations and short splashes of jam throughout (although I always wish for a little more). The band hams it up, interacting comfortably and playfully with one another. Ani's connection with Julie Wolfe, who plays keyboards and sings backup, shines noticeably strong as the two exchange a joke and giggles between verses of the boisterous a cappella duet, "Freak Show." The two horn players, more recent additions to the band, toot along with a stiff, comic groove, inciting chuckles from Chris and me.

I have dived into the undertow of the crowd as it dances in a tight mass in front of the stage. The sun sets behind us, and the ensuing fluorescent pink stretches over and through the lot of us...

iv.

I feel that it is the synergy between the artists onstage, both with one another and with the audience offstage, that creates the magic of a live performance and that determines its emotional impact on all parties. This means much more than musical synergy: the respect and honor that each party holds for the others is paramount.

Indeed, I have thought that one of the primary reasons that I so enjoy Ani's concerts is the tremendous amount of respect and honesty that I feel her offer to fellow musicians and to her audience through her presence, her laughter, her stories, and not least of all, through her music. Her presence is open and sincere; between songs she chats and jokes spontaneously with humility and candor. She seems to offer herself, and in doing so, to fully see and experience the audience. My impression is one of being engaged in a one-on-one interaction.

As the sky darkens, Ani strums her guitar into a mellow intro, and speaks the same from her own perspective: "...but we can all look up later when the moon does come out and think of each other, and the music we make together. You know, it looks like it's just us making music up here, but it's really not that way I don't think. If there's anything I've learned after years and years of standing on my little hind legs making folk music on stages, it's that you're the show."

v.

Nearing the end of the concert, I wander back from the stage and notice an open piece of ground. I stand in the center and breathe into moving meditation. Through dance, I work my way into emptiness, scooping in the music with each inhale, setting it free with the exhale. Welling up inside is the joyous consciousness that spirit is gushing through me.

The meditative dance has become a rite, an act connecting me to the divine within and without. Ani is the leader in the ritual that is this concert: she has become none other than a modern-day priestess, leading us all, with humility and power, in song. Connecting with the divine by abandoning herself to her art, she is facilitating this connection with the universe for me and, in as many ways as there are individuals to experience it, for all of her audience.

I believe that true healing means journeying to a place within ourselves where we can reconnect with our own pure inner light, and rediscover and reaffirm that it is undeniably linked to a greater light, to all things. Through this journey, we can experience a renewal, a shift, a realignment that refreshes our bodies and spirits. This concert has been just such a journey of healing for me. I feel this deep inside as the stage lights fade after the encore, as the crowd hesitates and hushes, bowing to collect belongings and wander home.

I am still standing in the midst of it all, in this amphitheater that has become the whole world. I am feeling the magic of this tremendous interaction that, just an instant earlier, filled us all and pulsed into the black and star-laden sky. It is echoing through this place--reverberating through the stage, the benches, the moist grass, reflecting off of the stars themselves. It is echoing through me still.

Sarah Wilcox interned in the Lost Valley gardens from March through October, 2001, and dreams of one day riding to glean apples in a horse-drawn farm cart.