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Alanis Morissette in Toronto

Sound Academy, Toronto | October 15th, 2012

Alanis Morissette’s recent concert in Toronto wasn’t an outright nostalgia show, but the jam-packed crowd seemed to be feeling that way.

Jagged Little Pill, the album that made the singer-songwriter an international superstar and today has sold some 33 million copies, is 17 years old.

The Ottawa-born Morissette, now 38, and married with a young child (her husband MC Souleye opened the show), was living in Toronto in the early nineties, experimenting with different co-writers and directions before going to Los Angeles and putting her personality into her music, effectively nailing shut the coffin on the dance-pop that had made her a teen star in Canada.

Even with a new album, her eighth studio release Havoc And Bright Lights, she chose to perform nine songs from Jagged Little Pill, just under half of her 21-song set:  “All I Really Want,” “You Learn,” “Perfect,” “Right Through You,” “Ironic,” “Head Over Feet,” “You Oughta Know,” “Hand In My Pocket” and “Not The Doctor.”

The 75-minute concert began with Morissette’s voice heard off-stage and her band — guitarists Jason Orme and Julian Coryell, bassist Cedric LeMoyne, drummer Victor Indrizzo and keyboardist Mike Farrell — on the stage, playing “I Remain.”  The singer then emerged and paced, as she does, singing “Woman Down” from Havoc.  When she blew the harp signally  “All I Want,” the crowd sang along, as they continued to do enthusiastically with every Jagged song, particularly for “Ironic” and “Head Over Feet.”

While she also played popular post-Jagged tracks, such as “So Pure,” “Uninvited” and “So Unsexy,” it was those Jagged Little Pill numbers that bought out the major sing-alongs. No doubt, there were many people re-living their youth from 1995, whether they were six or 26 at that time.

Photography by: Williams & Hirakawa

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