Elly Roberts reviews

Distributed by
Righteous Babe

Cert: Pressing: 2008 Region(s): 0, PAL Running time: 861 minutes Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Languages: English Widescreen: 16:9, plus live CD of 10 selected tracks Disc Format: DVD 9 Price: £17.99 Rating: 8/10 Tracks: 18 include Napoleon, Present/Infant, Independence Day, Sunday Morning, Alla This, little Plastic Castle, Overlap *Contains some swearing*

Socially conscienced folk babe plays Babeville. ‘Her’ venue debut.

Recorded live at Babeville, Buffalo, New York on September 11/12 2007, Ani Difranco played two sold out gigs at her own venue.

Babeville had been a labour of love for nigh-on a decade, saving and regenerating the 135 year old former Delaware Avenue Methodist church, which has been morphed into a state of the art facility and community arts space.

In front of her home crowd, Angela Mari Difranco, 36 at time of show, she delivered a warm, and often passionate, intimate performance. But below the easy flowing charm is a woman of substance as she continues to have a pop at all things that deeply bother her – racism, homophobia, poverty, war, sexual abuse and reproductive rights – a very powerful cannon.

For the uninitiated, Difranco has a unique ‘folk’ based template characterised by a staccato style incorporating rapid finger picking and several alternate tunings, delivering many of her lines in a speaking mode notable for its rhythmic variation, in the process becoming a cult figure for her opinionated views.

With her new backing band, she serves up a feast for her ardent fanbase on both DVD and CD debuting new songs with oldies. It takes a few minutes to kick off due to the backstage and street shots, but it’s worth the short wait. Guitar in hand, she enters to rapturous applause, as any local girl would do. Clearly thrilled, beaming and restless she shoots with Napoleon with virtually every lyric getting a huge reaction.

On Swim she displays a fine technical style plucking and strumming the lightweight poppy ballad. Switching style with ease, she funks-up on the jazzy groove of Fuel featuring some deft bassline ripples from upright bassist Todd Sickafoose and Mike Dillon on vibes. They do much the same on Paradigm allowing her to strum the goodies with style.

Eventually she eggs-on the crowd to clap along to Shy but it soon fades as she digs deep on a solo spot. Up until Shy, things had been pretty full-on and effusive, so a gentle change of pace is brought via a beautiful ballad You Had Your Time, though further in she gushes on her trademark staccato stylings for Gravel. After a night of regular guitar rotation she ends with sweet ballad Hypnotized.

The crowd obviously were.

File under: Big in Buffalo. Needs bigger audience for her cause.