A radiant source of power

Ani DiFranco (pictured here in 2006) was funny, beaming, and energized at the Orpheum Friday night. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images/file 2006)

The last time Ani DiFranco played the Orpheum, in support of last year's "Reprieve," she was pregnant and, by her own admission, had to play guitar "matador-style." When she returned on Friday, the baby was asleep in the dressing room, and neither the responsibilities of motherhood nor the fact that her latest release, "Canon," is simply a best-of collection seemed to lessen her power.

In fact, DiFranco seems to feed off of responsibility. This is a woman, after all, whose constant activism and self-reliance (with the founding and operation of her Righteous Babe label, she has exercised complete control over her career from the start) appears to leave her energized, rather than depleted. That was evidenced by a performance that was less like a concert than like church, a reminder that as accomplished a record-maker as she has become over the years, DiFranco thrives onstage.

Her albums can't capture the way she beamed all the way through the opening "Fuel," nor can they convey the slow, ominous way she made her way downstage toward the microphone as she finger-picked the speedy, descending intro of "Decree." Even her live releases only reveal a glimpse of how truly funny DiFranco can be on topics as diverse as discussing nuclear waste with senators, her decision to home-birth her child, and the surcharge for "renovations" during her last Orpheum show, of which she saw no evidence beyond a new toilet seat backstage.

But none of that would matter if DiFranco weren't one of the most gifted songwriters and performers of her generation. She showed no signs of flagging, though she certainly had help from a crack band consisting of bassist Todd Sickafoose, percussionist Mike Dillon, and drummer Allison Miller. Miller was particularly astonishing, offering up the funky acoustic groove of "Fuel," the complex, shifting rhythm of "Done Wrong" and the subtle thwack of "Grey."

Beyond an updated arrangement of "Both Hands" that turned a deliriously sensual failed-love song into a jaunty, undistinguished acoustic pop number, the show suffered only from the songs she didn't sing. But she compensated with the jaw-dropping sight of Ohio congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, back on stage with a shaker in hand after a pre-show political appeal, jamming with DiFranco, poet Buddy Wakefield, and local singer/songwriter/flugelhornist Melissa Ferrick on "Little Plastic Castle." It was funny, heartfelt, and impassioned all at once, in a way that seemingly only DiFranco could pull off.