Alanis Live (aka My Night of Bliss)

I said I would scream and I did...Alanis rocked!
My admiration...ok, obsession, begins with the fact that we share the same birth date. Not just the same date, but the exact same day. Sure...I might be making too much of that tiny fact but it's the music too. I've loved her music from day one. It reflects the complexity that I am: a perfect blend of anger, pain, love, hope, healing, gratitude, spirituality, surrender, and some great rock.

I was genuinely surprised by the intergenerational representation at the concert. There were folks in their late 50's if not 60's, and it was a sweet moment when the musicians handed some their paraphernalia (sticks, picks, playlist [playlist...?]) to what looked like an eleven year old at the edge of the stage. I look forward to the time when I am the designated 'concert parent'... yes, I actually want to take Joy (and no doubt a car full of squealing tweens) to her first concerts. I'll have to pack the earplugs 'cause my dear child is not a fan of loud (that she gets from her mother) and Alanis was L O U D. The exquisitely classic midland theater held the sound perfectly and drove it straight to the heart bypassing the ears. I had forgotten how sweet it is to feel the music before I hear it.

This was a tour promoting the new album FLAVORS OF ENTANGLEMENT. Some of my favs from the album were covered: Moratorium, Versions of Violence, and the achingly beautiful break-up ballad Not As We. But she also indulged her fans with favorites spanning as far back as JAGGED LITTLE PILL: You Oughta Know, Hand In My Pocket, Head Over Feet, and Ironic. Favorite crowd moment: changing lyric in Ironic as follows-"...it's meeting the man of my dreams, and the meeting his beautiful husband!" That brought the house down. And it was pretty brave in the conservative mid-west.

But was it brave enough? My only disappointment all night was that she didn't perform the lead track of the new album: Citizen Of The Planet (see video in side-bar). I waited (enjoyed) through two encores but no Citizen. Jen's theory is that the song is too political for performance. Political? The song is actually anti-political and really what we need now in a time of political over-saturation. I'd prefer to think the absence of Citizen from the playlist was for musical reasons. That's the story I'm sticking to.

And yes...I bought a t-shirt.

I am a Citizen of The Planet.