Search - Ani Di Franco - Trust on DVD

Strangely distant

A. Andersen | Austin, TX | 01/09/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"At last, all us rabid fans, have our Ani DiFranco concert dvd. I was extremely excited about this release, as I'd seen clips from the RBR website, and delighted to find it as a Christmas concert. However, I popped it in my laptop and was inexplicably let-down. The dynamic camerawork from Render's song selections has been replaced with an odd "documentary" style film-making which gravitates between grainy images and stark clear images, often in the same song. The camera also veers wildly away from Ani, choosing instead to focus on details of the stage: her urn, her cellolist's big toe, a random person in the crowd ... you get the idea. Ani alone is compelling to me, and I want to be right up with her, so I can truly recreate my concert experience. However, this dvd does not do that, not for me. I felt strangely detached from the songs as I watched, because Ani is filmed from a side angle, an angle no audience member would ever actually see from. To try to understand my disappointment, I popped in Melissa Etheridge's Live and Alone dvd, and immediately spied the difference. Trust holds me back from the action, away from Ani, as though I were a voyeur, not a devoted fan. Live and Alone puts the audience member immediately in Melissa's passionate playing; you feel as though you're there.

From a performance standpoint, the concert couldn't be better. Precise, passionate, clear singing - but to quote Ani herself, an "almost too perfect" performance. She seems to be going through the motions here - she's singing her heart out, but not with the wonderful energy I'm accustomed to in a live performance.

I even miss the Ani chatter, a staple of any real DiFranco show. Personally, I would have preferred if she'd picked one single performance, not culled it from two nights. Some of the song changes are abrupt and off-putting.

In brief, it's lovely to have genunine Ani concert dvd and I enjoy the song selection, but this feels like a trial exercise, a warm-up to actually capturing the true Ani live experience on film."

Uninteresting portrait of a goddess

LF | USA | 01/09/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I love Ani. She is my favorite recording artist of all time, putting the Beatles back to second place. Her between-song interaction with the audience is fun too.

I liked that she has Dennis Kucinich on this dvd. I am a big Kucinich supporter and have his bumper sticker on my car. I am one of the few people on earth to own a Kucinich baseball cap.

Now that you know that I'm on my knees worshipping Ani DiFranco, I have to say that I wasn't thrilled with this dvd. It wasn't all that interesting. By the end of it I was doing something else, not watching it, just listening to the songs.

There was almost no interaction with the audience. I came away from it with the feeling that my connection to Ani is purely intellectual and musical, and that if I met her in person there would be no connection at all. Still, I had to marvel at how she plays the guitar so well while singing so well, and is so damn brilliant.

I think the part I liked best was when she was dancing with her friend."

The Real McCoy ...

D. Stull | 03/26/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I didn't start out an Ani DiFranco fan. I'm a middle-aged, fat, heterosexual man living in Chicago for 25 years - not exactly the type to fit her typical fan profile. But I picked up one of her CDs some time ago, out of curiosity, and I really liked it, so I picked up a couple more. Then I bought her DVD "Render" and the more I learned about her music, the better I liked it and the more I came to respect her as an artist.

And I do mean 'artist' - not just a musician or performer. She's the real McCoy. In fact, I think she's one of the best American artists living and working, today. And I highly recommend this DVD "Trust". It's pretty much a concert documentary and reflects her current show as she is performing it around the country. I know, because I went to see her at the Vic in Chicago just last month. It's an excellent show and the reason for it is that she's stripped it down to it's essentials. No drums, no keyboards, no horns, - most of the performance is just her and her acoustic bass player, Todd Sickafoose. I really like this DVD because I get to see her for what she is, and to me that means as an artist who writes words and music and performs them for an audience. It's entertaining, but it's not just entertainment. It's art. It's one person opening herself up, sharing and articulating her thoughts and experiences with her audience because she knows that they think and feel many of those same things, and that they appreciate having someone express them with such skill, and courage, and honesty, and insight.

Check out Ani DiFranco, and this DVD "Trust". Even if you don't think of yourself as someone who would like Ani DiFranco, you might be very surprised. She's the real thing."

A Goddess stripped to bare beauty with a fantastic bassist

A. Yates | Atlanta,GA | 07/26/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I went to graduate school in Rochester, N.Y. (a neighbor 80 miles to the east of Ani's home city of Buffalo) in 1994 and majored in music performance. Rochester was already very plugged in to this independent poetic princess and her passionate, percussive guitar playing. I was handed a copy of "Puddle Dive" from a neighbor weeks after arriving and "TRUST" me, I have ALL of her stuff. I became a fan right way and I am a true Ani fanatic. This DVD is absolutey wonderful. I highly recommend it!As well as a treat for the eyes, this DVD is a treat for the ears. It is a fantastic playlist, the staging/instrumental simplicity and the creative filming is what makes it so incredibly beautiful to me. The addition of the bassist Todd Sickefoose added greatly to the richness and energy of this performance also. Listening to Ani reaches me in many ways, but seeing her perform like this (which I prefer) touches me in ways that seeing her with my ears can never reach."