Feminist rocker Ani DiFranco stopped in Columbia on her latest tour, celebrating the 25-year anniversary of her album “Little Plastic Castle.” On an unassuming Wednesday night, Sept. 13, forty-somethings filled The Blue Note to revel in DiFranco’s raucous chords and raspy vocals. 

DiFranco tiptoed onstage with playful humility, cutting the air with a stroke of her guitar. Forgoing a guitar pick, she strummed with five rubber-covered fingertips. 

Despite her well-known reputation, DiFranco made each audience member feel like they were the only one in the room. She bantered and laughed at her own (rare) mistakes. 

When DiFranco wondered out loud if she was due for a haircut, an enthusiastic audience member offered their haircutting skills. She really did get a haircut from the fan after the show, and posted it on her Instagram. 

The concert’s rarity came from DiFranco’s authentic delivery of her music rather than the music itself, as electric as it was. There was not an ounce of self-consciousness in how she spoke, moved and sang. For all it mattered, the audience might have been sitting in her living room.   

Mid-concert, DiFranco paused her playing to share a poem. She spoke casually and contemplatively, it was impossible to tell if she was making it up on the spot or performing these lines for the hundredth time. The poem, “My IQ” detailed her relationship with her “breakable, takeable, ever increasingly valuable body.” Her words about intelligence, family lineage and her first period crept up the necks of listeners like cold fingers. 

DiFranco invited the opener, Kristen Ford, onstage towards the end of the concert. Ford and DiFranco co-wrote “White Man’s Dream,” a single produced under DiFranco’s record label Righteous Babe Records. 

The two had a winsome combination of rasp and sass, enhanced by Ford’s beatboxing and tambourine playing. They even incorporated a quaint do-si-do. 

DiFranco played for what felt like hours, but the crowd would not be satiated. After the encore, they screamed for more, to no avail. As the house lights came on, there was a distinct feeling of transformation. The Blue Note had been baptized in Ani DiFranco’s light.

Edited by Alex Goldstein | agoldstein@themaneater.com
Copy Edited by Sterling Sewell | ssewell@themaneater.com