Well, I've been enjoying the continual pros and cons for Travelogue and Joni's life's works. Very good points by all. The same thing is going on at YesTalk.org. When artists stick around this long and have devoted fans who love to speak their minds, it's wonderful. Sure occasionally people react to their own projections of what the other says, that's because we live in our own dreamtime.
Anyway, I'm switching gears because rarely do I get to speak about my favorite Joni moment, and that was the concert for Amnesty International about 12 years ago. It was put on for 3 days by MTV, but the last evening was switched to network primetime. At 7 or 8 whenever it started, Bryan Adams came on and rocked the house, I guess. I really didn't understand why he was there at all, I figured someone paid for that time slot. So he "rocked" then they cut away to commercial. When they came back the crowd was in a pop frenzy, chanting "We're number one, we're number one". Joni comes out and starts a solo slow acoustic version of The Three Great Stimulants. Through at least the first half of the song, people were screaming and just partying, loud and proud. But by the end of the song the majority had finally remembered what the concert for Amnesty International was about, that people were being tortured and dying everyday by brutal tyrants, some of which (not all) were supported by western civilization "Oh these times, oh these brutal times". Then she brought an impromptu four-piece band, Larry Klein, Manu Katche (who plays with Peter Gabriel) and Dolette McDonald (who backed up vocals for Sting) and they played Number One which grooved, further redefining the concert from chanting "We're number one" to "honey, did you win or lose?". Then Larry and Joni finished with Hejira, "Then I looked at myself here, chicken-scratching for my immortality." That's when I became an absolute fanatic of Joni's expression. Jack
