We time travelled back to 1995 on Wednesday night. Alanis finally made it around with her Jagged Little Pill 25th anniversary tour along with supporting act Garbage.
Walking into the venue there was a dominant aura of estrogen in the air as the audience skewed at least 80% female. Lovers, friends, mothers and daughters were all coming together to relive or be introduced to one of the most influential albums of the mid 90s teenage girls, “Jagged Little Pill” Alanis Morissette’s best-selling album.
Shirley Manson of Garbage
Opening the night was Garbage, who’s first gig (coincidentally or ironically) goes back to 1995 in Madison Wisconsin. Fronted by Scotland’s Shirley Manson, the band has remained unchanged for the past 27 years. They have had a few breaks along the way, but the same line up continues with the great Butch Vig on drums, Steve Marker and Duke Erikson on guitars. The band has been touring with Eric Avery who was a major player in Jane’s Addiction. He also contributed to the last few Garbage studio albums.
Shirley Manson and company sure know how to kick some serious ass. They have not lost their edge they were known for in to post grunge era. If anything they have some serious attitude as noted in the song, “The Men Who Rule The World” which Shirley introed by saying, “This is one of the most prescient songs they’ve written in some time.” For me it was the highlight of the night where the band exhibited serious pent up emotion against the greedy corporations. She ended the song with ‘Fuck the supreme court of America’ It’s nice to see they still have the punk punch and attitude from their early days. Something many bands can learn from.
‘Only Happy When It Rains’ was a cell phone and sing along favourite. I loved Butch Vig’s bass drum skin “Be Kind.” “Push It” got people rocking and dancing in their seats and on the floor. Overall, they kicked some serious ass. It’s funny when a band closes with “We’ve been ‘Garbage’ and you’ve been amazing.” They were well received by those in attendance as about 2/3rds of the place was full for their show, which is usually not the case for openers. I would almost call this show a double bill. Almost…
It was clear who the audience was there to watch, listen to and sing along with when the lights dimmed for Alanis. The opening video montage had clips of many celebrities singing along to Ironic and a couple other hits and snippets of Morissette’s career through the past 30 plus years. She then kicked off the night the same way her Jagged Little Pill album opens: “All I Really Want.” as this is JLP 25th anniversary tour (which turned 25 back in 2020, but you know…) The album may be 25/27 years old, but Alanis made it feel fresh and new as she strutted across the stage in her angry pacing that she’s known for donned in an oversized t-shirt and simple jeans. From a photog’s perspective it was tough to catch her as we are also 40 rows away from the stage. But from a performance angle, she was right on target exhibiting the powerful vocals and unbridled energy that remained through out the night.
It didn’t take too long for the crowd’s vocals to get going as the second song of the night was the singalong “Hand In My Pocket.” However loud the crowd sang, Alanis could not be drowned out. If you sang at the top of your voice you missed out on some fine glass breaking moments from Alanis as she leaned into the vocals. “Mary Jane” rolled into the set list a few songs later giving the audience a fine sample of her vocal prowess. Because this song isn’t as popular as the others off JLP, you were able to hear how preserved her vocals are at this stage of life.
This was also a major of a lull in her performance. There was a great opening couple of numbers followed by the roller coaster losing traction and bobbing back and forth on the track for a few songs. I don’t know if it was the lack of familiarity, the little snippets of songs between each main attraction, or the void of audience interaction, but something was missing for about 40 minutes or so.
The crowd absolutely exploded for Ironic. That reaction may have been due to the fact they may have fallen asleep for a moment because of the aforementioned lull. There was no letting up from the moment onwards though. Ironic was dedicated to Taylor Hawkins who was her drummer before he joined the Foo Fighters. Alanis and the band bowed when his face was shown on the screen.
Her energy seemed endless as she went into a huge aerobic spin for at least 90 seconds or more near the end of I Remain. Alanis kept headbanging and running around the stage like a toddler on a sugar rush. She did look a lot like the Alanis of 25 plus years ago. Vocally she sounded better than the Alanis of 25 plus years ago.
Some of the biggest cheers of the night were reserved for the second song in her encore, Uninvited as the piano tickled out the first notes the crowd went wild. The ending was an emotional moment which even caused me well up a little bit. #ThankYouJLP25 was a social media campaign that saw thousands of posts from people saying what they are thankful for including the family they have, the roof over their head, the successful disease victory, the memories of those who were lost to diseases such as cancer and so on. The screen behind the stage was filled with many of these posts coming to life as she sang along. Personally, I could not tell you what the vocal were like as I was busy trying to read as many messages as possible. Check out #ThankYouJLP25. Judging by the hugs and tears present in those closest to me in the crowd, there were lots of people thankful for one thing or another that night.
All in all, this was a pretty good show. Many who have been waiting a long time to see Alanis as she doesn’t tour frequently, were quite pleased with the show. My friend even said he didn’t realize this was a bucket list show until afterwards. Alanis doesn’t interact with the audience too much and just jumps into song after song. There needs to be something added to the middle of the set to wake people up earlier, but maybe for a diehard fan, this was the perfect mix of a setlist.
For more on Alanis check out: https://alanis.com/ For more on Garbage visit: https://www.garbage.com/
