Alanis in Raleigh!

My wonderful friend Sara and I had a mom date last weekend and saw Cat Power/Garbage/Alanis Morissette in concert in Raleigh, NC (on August 22). It was an awesome night.

Those of you who have known me for a long time know that I’m a huge Alanis Morissette fan. When I first heard Jagged Little Pill (released on June 13 – Zach’s birthday!) back in middle school, it changed my life. I related to the angst and felt validated that I was a moody, insecure tween who never felt good enough. I remember listening to “Forgiven” on my way to Catholic religion class and being fascinated when I realized what it was about. I felt like a rebel listening to a song about blow jobs in movie theaters with the word “fuck” in it! I mulled over the lyrics of “All I Really Want,” “Not the Doctor,” “Right Through You,” and “Wake Up.” Honestly, I was too young to understand a lot of the album’s subject matter when I first started listening to it but as I got older and understood more about life and the world, it was formulating. You could feel not good enough as a kid, taken advantage of as a trusting teen/young adult, and still stand up, nope out,and “not the one” a bad situation as an adult. I don’t know if I’m explaining it right but shit, I related to Alanis’ music, especially the first 3 albums. (Under Rug Swept is criminally underrated and I don’t know why “Hands Clean” – released on my birthday in 2002 – was never really given the scrutiny/blind-item treatment that “You Oughta Know” was given. Like, yeah, it sucks that Uncle Joey sucked but she basically called out a proto-Dan Schneider and dude must have been powerful enough in 2002 to squash bad PR but why didn’t it ever come back up in 2016/17 during #MeToo?)

Anyways, the concert was so, so great. We missed Cat Powers (who I do like!!) but caught Garbage, and Shirley Manson sounds just as good as ever. Alanis was also absolutely amazing. I’ve seen her in concert so many times, but it’s been a good 16 years since I last saw her. I may be wrong but I believe my last Alanis concert was the Jagged Little Pill Acoustic tour with my friend Julia back on June 15, 2005, at Radio City Music Hall.

Like I said above, the concert was awesome. My only nitpick would be that the setlist was mostly JLP songs and I love all of the songs from her first 3 albums and a bunch of songs from the next few, even if I’m not as familiar with them. I don’t know a lot of her recent stuff, but that’s just because life has gotten in the way. Some of the songs that I was hoping to hear in full but didn’t include “Hands Clean,” “Precious Illusions,” “No Pressure Over Cappucino,” “Front Row,” and “That I Would Be Good.”

Overall, I can’t complain, though. It was a great concert and I hope she tours on the regular again. Her encore version of “Your House” was really fun. That’s the acapella secret song at the end of JLP and in this version, she did it in various musical styles. A portion of it is actually the only video I took of the concert (below).

Here’s the setlist and partial video of “Your House.”

Setlist: