It was a windy night, the air practically crackling with electricity as fans of Ani DiFranco filed into Santa Rosa's Luther Burbank Center. Though the LBC was originally built as a church (and still has pews for seats), it has played host to musical guests from Tori Amos to Carlos Santana to the Vienna Choir Boys. Ani herself performed here not so long ago, but the crowd which attended that earlier show consisted mainly of middle-aged lesbian couples. This time around, the audience seemed like a hand-picked selection from every walk of life: high school girls, college students, the aforementioned lesbians, schoolteachers, young moms and more men than I've ever seen at one of DiFranco's concerts.

It was evidence, perhaps, of the recent publicity the Righteous Babe has received since the release of her latest CD, Dilate: more people are hearing about the woman with her guitar; the girl with the voice so loud you scarcely believe it's coming out of such a tiny lady; the phoenix whose lyrics reach into everyone's life in some way or another, stirring things up, all the while keeping that huge grin on her face.

All these elements, plus Ani's infectious good cheer, were in evidence at Sunday (Oct. 27) night's concert. Despite fighting off a flu, missing two nights' sleep and travelling to LA and back to the San Francisco Bay Area on the day of the show, the singer managed to muster up phenomenal amounts of energy, opening her first set with a jazzier, slower version of "Fire Door" with chunks of "Amazing Grace" thrown in. Though the two songs source from distinctly different periods in Ani's recording career, she made them fit together well. Later she would include her poem "Not So Soft" into her favorite grab-bag song, "Diner," but she followed "Fire Door" with a one-two punch of new material.

The first, a song, one which fans have lovingly dubbed "Gravel," is a tune Ani's been toying with since spring of this year. "The sound of your wheels as they hit the gravel/Then the sound of your engine cutting off" begins the song about an asshole lover who's beginning to grow on her. The second was a slow, almost ethereally dreamy tune about living in a glass house. Though Ani had threatened in the beginning, "We're going to play all REM songs tonight. We'll make no sense at all," then sang, "It's the middle of the tour as we know it -- and we're going down," the fresh material was a real treat from the woman so prolific she's released eight albums -- nine, including her work with Utah Phillips -- since 1990.

Ani seemed to focus mainly on newer material, especially work from Dilate and its immediate predecessor, Not a Pretty Girl. "Napoleon" was given an infusion of fresh anger and tenderness with lines like "And I wonder when you're a big star/Will you miss the earth?" "Untouchable Face" has gained Ani so many hecklers who titter, giggle and shout the chorus' inflammatory "fuck you" that the singer prefaced the song with a disclaimer. "I'm going to play grammar school teacher for a minute. Please don't say..."

"Fuck you!" shouted a man from the audience.

"Yes. Please don't say that during this next song." When she finished performing "Face," she hastily explained, "Thank you for showing such remarkable restraint. You all can yell 'fuck you!' at me for the rest of the night if you want!"

Older material has gone through many changes through Ani's constant tinkering; "God's Country," an upbeat ditty about an interstate speeding ticket, has become a full-blown jug-band tune that had fans hoedowning in the aisles. Drummer Andy Stochansky took his time with an extended drum solo in the beginning of "Willing to Fight," giving the song's pensive nature a new edge. "Letter to a John" and "Face Up and Sing" were also angrier than their album versions.

"Worthy" was taken a little more slowly now that Ani's not using it as her opening number, and the midsection has become a showcase for Ani and Andy's continual sibling-style interplay. Ani would sing a line from the chorus, "I'm not worthy of you," and Andy would respond, deadpan, "No." Ani followed with "You're not worthy of me," and Andy replied, "Sure." The first verse of "Done Wrong" -- "It's a cold rain, it's a hard rain/Like the kind you find in songs/Guess that makes me the jerk with the heartache/Here to sing about how I've been done wrong" -- was delivered with wry humor before Ani completely upended the emotional tone, delivering the rest of the tune with blistering anger.

Another brand-new song appeared later in the set, a driving, bluesy number about two girls growing up together in New York City. One is an NYC native; the other is "fresh off the boat from Virginia." As the story unwinds, it's revealed that the girls have become extremely close friends, perhaps more than that, but the Virginian falls prey to the darker side of big-city life: "I loved you first... She emptied her syringes into your arms." It is perhaps one of the most powerful songs DiFranco has written, and she's written many. Another of these, the anthemic "Not a Pretty Girl," came later, with members of the crowd meowing playfully as Ani approached the lines "Put me down, punk/I am not a maiden fair/Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?" Despite the feline heckling, after the song was finished many women in the crowd were shouting "Thank you!"

DiFranco didn't let her physical setbacks prevent her from playing her best. Her two-hour set was tight, bright and full of joy, bracing Ani's frenetic strumming against Andy's quick, subtle percussion and bassist Sara Lee's swooping bass lines. All three have gorgeous voices and hearing them sing together, as they did in "Fire Door," is simply amazing.

I can't say where Ani got her energy Sunday night; perhaps from the electricity in the wind, perhaps from her voice and guitar, perhaps from the good cheer of the audience at her feet. Whatever the source, DiFranco shines like a bright beacon, leading her audiences towards illumination and release without trying to be a spokeswoman or a heroine. I've heard that Ani plans to release a live album in the next six months; it will likely be a worthwhile purchase, but nothing -- and I mean nothing -- compares to the way she sparkles onstage.

This article was originally published in Addicted to Noise.