ani and em’s annual jam

after i see a concert, there’s always this fuzzy afterglow period where try to grasp the concept that i spent time in the same room as a famous, talented musician from a world completely different than mine. today is no different. i can’t stop thinking about the fact that famous, talented, and wonderful ani difranco and i shared the same airspace last night. just the fact that our lives could meet like that for an hour and a half in one room shocks me. granted, that one room was the very large mullins center, but ani can make even a stadium seem intimate. i felt like we were just hanging out, you know, ani and em’s annual jam session.

it was cool to go with rachel b/c she was an ani live virgin. in fact, she had only been really introduced to ani last spring at hampshire a cappella. (hampshire? a cappella? yeah, i was puzzled, too, but they were good.) at the time, my whole face was swollen shut with hay fever, but they sang “heartbreak even,” and rachel was like, “who’s this?” and with that, her curiosity was piqued.

so we had dinner with a couple of rachel’s friends at the black sheep in amherst and then we went over to the concert, where we ran into melissa (i’ve seen all of my ani concerts in mel’s presence, and this one counts, too) and quinn, and then went in for the opening act, which was a strange guy and his guitar. the highlight was his backup on bass, who seemed to have a very affectionate, erotic attraction to his instrument. between songs he rested his temple against it and there was some noticeable caressing action.

finally, ani! she’s on a solo tour, but she plays that guitar so hard, it’s incredible. songs she played: swan dive, angry anymore, little plastic castle, independence day, second intermission, dilate. she recited “self evident,” which is her 9/11 & america poem, and played “evolve” for her first encore. yes, the first of two! then she came back out to play gravel, which was great in and of itself b/c it was the only song i recognized at my very first concert. and then, just when i was thinking, “it’s ok if she doesn’t play ‘both hands,’” she whispered something to the guitar guy who hangs out in the wings, and he brought her guitar back, and she went at it again, with the very first chords of my favorite song. i almost died. and instead i just cried. it felt like the whole song was filling me up. it was awesome.

the one year that chelsea and i actually went to camp together, our jc christy would play “both hands” on her guitar before we went to sleep. we were twelve then, and we didn’t understand, but we knew we liked it and i remember going home after the session and writing down all the lyrics we could remember in this notebook. when i was a cc at camp two summers ago and i started singing my own campers to sleep, i wanted to pass it on. the best part was third session when one of my most awesome campers ever would request it every night. she’d say, “can you sing the ‘graffiti on my body’ song?” i told her to download the real thing when she got home and when she did she said, “i listened to it, but you’re so much better.” maybe one day she’ll understand, too.

we finished off the night with ice cream at bart’s, which was so cute. ani and ice cream, it doesn’t get better than that.

quote of the day: “and both hands, now use both hands. oh, no don’t close your eyes. i am writing graffiti on your body, i am drawing the story of how hard we tried” – ani difranco

love always, em locke