Despite having to sit on a chair for the entire the show due to a broken foot, indie rocker Ani DiFranco brought the audience to their feet multiple times during her concert at the Chicago Theatre Saturday evening.

Hamell on Trial opened the show with his brand of feisty political punk acoustic rock. Ed Hamell's subtly unnerving, Lex Luthor-esqe appearance, overtly irritating personality and unapologetic high-powered rock guitar made his show a conflicting experience to watch.

On one hand, Hamell is a phenomenal guitarist who really engages the audience with his hard-hitting punk sound. On the other hand, he's a preachy, pompous and whiny prick. Hamell stopped between every song and attempted to tell jokes to the audience which were neither original nor funny and slightly offensive.

Hamell's lyrics mostly kvetched about conservative national politics. While he's playing, he's talented and witty, but Carrot Top would be more entertaining talking in between songs. Luckily, Hamell stuck to the 30-minute rule and rolled his cue ball-like head off stage before he embarrassed himself too much.

The audience greeted DiFranco with a huge roar and she greeted the audience with a sheepish smile and an apology for the broken foot. DiFranco pushed right into her usual high-energy performance despite being chair-bound. She had a stagehand bring her a different guitar between each song for the solo set. The audience sat mesmerized for the entire hour and a half show.

DiFranco, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., emerged on the American music scene in 1989 when she self-produced her first album on her own label, Righteous Babe Records, when she was 19.

DiFranco began performing covers of Beatles tunes in local bars when she was nine and began writing and performing her own music when she was 15. Following her parents' divorce, DiFranco moved out of her mother's apartment and started performing regularly at bars and coffeehouses. By the time she moved to New York City at age 18, she had already written over 100 pieces of original material.

Though DiFranco was solicited by a number of record companies, both major studios and independent labels alike, she turned them down and started Righteous Babe in an effort to keep artistic control over her work. She emptied her bank account and borrowed money from friends to produce her self-titled acoustic album. The record gained an instant grassroots following, especially on college campuses, and DiFranco moved from playing bars and coffeeshops to larger theaters and folk festivals.

Since her second album, DiFranco has released at least one album each year totaling 19 in all. But the foundations of DiFranco's unique style can be heard on her initial release.

DiFranco's style is hard to define; it resides somewhere in that zone between punk rock and folk rock — that very nebulous zone between punk rock and folk rock. Of course, that's sort of the point: DiFranco's music is about defying stereotypes and pigeonholing definitions.

Whatever label is put on her music, DiFranco's playing itself is almost indescribable. In her hands a guitar becomes a complete orchestra, she plays it more like a percussive ensemble than a solo six-string. And in between rapid-fire guitar riffs and pounding baselines, DiFranco bellows out her hypnotic lyrics that fall somewhere between poems and prayers.

DiFranco has never been shy about her political messages: pacifism, defense of women's rights, protecting the environment and preserving artistic integrity from corporate control, among others. In Saturday's concert she performed one of her newer pieces, "Serpentine," that exemplifies much of her philosophy: "Yes, the goons have gone global / and the CEOs are shredding files / and the Democrans / and the Republicrats / are flashing their toothy smiles / and Uncle Tom is posing for a photo op / with the Oval Office clan / and Uncle Sam is rigging cockfights / in the promised land."

But while DiFranco certainly has a political message, it's not the most important part of her performance. Looking around the Chicago Theatre, DiFranco attracts an incredibly diverse audience, from experimenting high school lesbians wearing fishnet stockings and multi-colored dreadlocks down their backs to stuffy 60-year-old Chicago politicos in fur coats and Armani jackets.

For every political message DiFranco pushes on her audience, she reveals something equally intimate about herself. In her song "Educated Guess" she talked about her struggles with depression and anxiety, a theme that has been present in her music from the start: "Looks like my crazy family / is down one crazy daughter 'cause / I'm shipwrecked in a desert that / once was underwater / just looking for a swift turn of phrase / some colors to fly / as I float by / in the parade."

After she finished her set, DiFranco returned to the stage for an encore. Instead of singing, DiFranco performed her poem she wrote about Sept. 11, "Self Evident." Amid scattered and hisses, boos and irksome shouts of "Socialist," DiFranco stood up trepidly and put on a breathtaking performance. When she finished, the crowd exploded with cheers.

Whether audience members liked what DiFranco had to say or not, there's no doubt that everyone has respect for the way she said it. DiFranco doesn't just appeal to honesty in the music business, she actually lives it. The fiercely independent DiFranco is a breath of unpolluted air in a musical world more concerned with hawking Pepsi than saying anything meaningful and meaningful is what DiFranco does best.

Contact C. Spencer Beggs at beggs.3@nd.edu

• DiFranco lights up Chicago