Review: Janis Ian at Caffe Lena; Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025

Janis Ian performed a sweet/sad swan song Saturday at Caffe Lena without singing a note, except on the screen where her “Breaking Silence” bio-documentary film showed before a Q&A and meet-and-greet.

Singer-songwriter Janis Ian, left, and Caffe Lena Executive Director Sarah Craig

Caffe Executive Director Sarah Craig led the Q&A, scurrying through the crowd with a mic for fan-questioners, like Phil Donahue back in the day. For many fans, the main event was meeting Ian at the merch table. There she signed albums, many dating from her 1960s and 1970s early fame, and listened graciously as fans poured out their hearts to the iconic singer-songwriter whose tour promoting the film may be her last.

Before showing the film, Craig asked who had delayed seeing the film until Saturday’s event, although it’s streamed on PBS’s American Masters series since June. Many in the mostly boomer crowd claimed they’d waited, and the experience felt fresh again in warmly welcoming company, even though I had seen it. 

“Breaking Silence” shares its title with her 1992 album, an uncommonly candid expression, even for the open-book Ian. It traces her artistic and personal journey in eye-opening detail through onstage performances, interviews with peer artists (she has very, very few of those) and with Ian herself; plus well-staged re-enactments. From precociously ambitious folkie who learned literally at Pete Seeger’s knee to early teen-aged success in the 1960s Greenwich Village “folk scare” to rapid achievement and influence, it’s a vivid story of oscillating ups and downs, creatively and personally. 

No spoilers here; go watch it; after reading this.

In the Q&A that followed the two-hour film, Ian gently steered questioners away from worshipful praise for her music’s impact on their lives to matters at hand, as framed by the film. 

She spoke of the stage as not a safe place, citing the courage it takes to perform where anything can happen, from patrons booing, or worse, to blithely leaving after finishing their pizza. She told of being driven offstage by organized-bigot protests at an early concert, but returned to finish the show, a crucial lesson in persevering in service to her artistic vision and purpose.

Other lessons followed; how drive and talent opens doors; how today’s political and social struggles take persistence, and the optimism she finds in seeing younger artists coming up who sing the same values of acceptance, honesty and courage that power her songs.

Now 74, acknowledging Saturday that “I have more behind me than in front of me” and that health challenges now prevent her from performing or recording – but not from writing – she seldom seemed nostalgic. She did, however, show warm affection for how heroes in the cultural centers of Greenwich Village, LA’s Laurel Canyon and San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury had nurtured her career and life.

Technical insights about writing, making records and performing included such practical tips as writing in rhythm to let listeners recover from heavy lines, and “Don’t fuck the band.” 

Fans inspired by her as a bisexual Jewish woman now married to a woman and a stubbornly creative force who struggled in a male-dominated industry and society expressed grateful awe at her courage. 

When the half-hour Q&A ended, Ian told Sarah Craig, sitting beside her onstage, “I love coming here” – to the Caffe where she’d often performed. 

Before playing cozy Caffe Lena, Ian had also performed at SPAC, where Alice Cooper and Judas Priest played Saturday.

Ian had played that same big stage, opening for Kris Kristofferson; late 1970s, early 1980s.

After her opening set, Kristofferson invited us writers backstage – a strong physical presence then, a tanned, fit, blade of a man after a month training with Muhammad Ali at the boxer’s Poconos camp. 

Radiating energy and confidence, he was nonetheless genuinely cowed by the daunting prospect of following Ian onstage.

His career strong with plentiful hits, he could afford a strong band and brought a mighty crew to SPAC: drummer “Slammin’ Sammy” Creason, keyboardists Donnie Fritts and Glen Clark (of the great duo Delbert and Glen), guitarist Stephen Bruton, multi-instrumentalist Billy Swan, and bassist Tommy McClure – all killers.

Even with all that – honed charisma, big hits, killer band – Kristofferson was terrified of going on after Ian, who had played with just another guitarist.

He was awed by her songs and said he feared his own wouldn’t measure up. His humility felt totally genuine and really touching.

Onstage, he told the audience all this; how he was awed by her talent, her songs and her presence.

When my turn to meet Ian at the merch table came Saturday at Caffe Lena, I handed her a note about what Kristofferson had said, rather than hold up the fans behind me to tell her. And I handed her the CD booklet to “Breaking Silence” for her to sign, noting my brother Jim Hoke played on it. 

“Ah, Jim – he’s great; Jim’s the best,” she said, and pointed to other albums on the merch table he’d played on with her.

“One of the saddest things about not recording any more is that I don’t get to work with Jim.” 

Yet, even on this farewell tour of sorts, Janis Ian seemed a happy presence, a tiny woman of enormous presence, power and achievement, whose songs and singing, words and voice, remain to inspire, to teach, to awe.