I’ve had a relationship with Ani DiFranco since around 1993.

This is not a conventional relationship, shall we say. It is somewhat of a long-distance one, but no less fulfilling for that. … The thing about Ani’s live performance is that you are left feeling that you have been really intimate with this lady. Hence the fact that I feel a connection.

Her previous general-release live albums, Living In Clip and So Much Shouting So Much Laughter, shows this, but not as well as this new live album Carnegie Hall - 4.6.02 does. Here Ani is stripped from her touring band, playing alone to a Carnegie Hall audience seven short months after the events of September 11, 2001. She appears totally comfortable playing to a large audience and talking to them as if they were just friends in a bar. Equipped with only an acoustic guitar, a voice, and her arsenal of words, DiFranco wholly disarms the audience, not only with the performance of her songs but also with her between-song chitchat. In both aspects she appears honest; with every new line and every new chord you feel like you just get to know her better. Her (by now) trademark percussive style of guitar-playing is on full display, with nothing to obscure it. Her voice skips and soars at the same time, matching and counter-pointing the staccato of her finger-picking. Boy, can she play the guitar.

The selection of songs for this official bootleg CD covers her career nicely. She raids the archives for older tunes “Names and Dates and Times”, and treats the audience to songs that are not quite finished, like “Serpentine” and the poem “Self Evident”. … There is a certain rawness and integrity to this recording. It is a snapshot of a performer coming to terms with a world that has been changed forever…Refusing to make any glib remarks about the demise of the people that worked in the Twin Towers and the landmark buildings themselves, Ani covers the thorny subject in her recital of “Self Evident”. In the liner notes she covers the self-doubt that she felt before performing the poem, and you can hear the hesitation in her voice. No review will ever do this recital justice.

–Marc A. Price

Buffalo, N.Y., native Ani DiFranco set the stage for her most intimate live album yet on April 6, 2002, when she took to the stage at Carnegie Hall. Four years in the making, the album is well worth the wait.

A live document of DiFranco’s visceral solo shows of 2002, Carnegie Hall captures a particularly impassioned gig before an audience still reeling from the 9/11 attacks. DiFranco, never one to shy away from complex emotional issues, offers a soul-stirring reading of "Self Evident" and "Serpentine" – astute, raw-nerved poems that must’ve spoken directly to her New York audience. Bold as ever and inventive, DiFranco’s hyper-rhythmic vocal figures and one-of-a-kind percussive guitar playing combine to often sublime effect, whether she’s spitting out venom or slowly and lovingly caressing a melody. A fine snapshot of a still-growing artist during one of many high points in her career.

–Jeff Miers

Vital.
Effusive.
Magnetic.
In this house, Ani live recordings are causes for celebration and sometimes, revelation.
Ecstatic.
Vibrant.
Intense.
Recorded seven months after 9-11, Ani storms the hallowed Carnegie stage dosing the faithful with street wisdom and intuition; reviving an emotionally still stunned New York audience with a masterful, honest-to God, powerhouse set of dynamically frenetic songs: "2 lil girls", "Educated G", "God’s Country", "Subdivision", "Out Of Range" … then mixes her dramatic spoken word: the one-of-a-kind "Serpentine"and the unforgettable, catch your breath "Self Evident".
Rousing.
Defiant.
DiFranco!

–Mike Jurkovic

Seven months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Ani DiFranco brought her solo act to New York’s Carnegie Hall and, at a time when social commentary was scarcely heard in America, shared her views on the country and world through her songs. This is a document of that often dramatic musical event.

DiFranco... wastes no time making her opinions known. The lyrics of the opener, "God’s Country", take on the religious right(eous), and "Subdivision" examines the race and class divisions in America. "Not So Soft", one of three spoken-word offerings on the CD, describes the commercial goings-on in New York’s financial District (site of the doomed World Trade Center),

… DiFranco is known for writing songs that are deeply personal, and Carnegie Hall 4.6.02 may go deeper than anything she’s ever done.

–Marke Andrews