Review: Alanis Morissette, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, June 16, 2024

Oddly enough, it was probably the patriarchy that caused many people to arrive late to Alanis Morissette’s show last night at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. People who weren’t delayed by Father’s Day festivities might have been there to hear Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” blaring through the speakers just before an opening act from rock icon Joan Jett and blasting this particular song through the amphitheater and into The Woodlands. suited. Morissette, Jett and rising country star Morgan Wade all come from a certain philosophy and they’ve teamed up for this road show, dubbed the Triple Moon Tour.

Jett’s presence (and Kathleen Hanna’s song) reminded us that Morissette was not the first rebellious girl. But her unfiltered, unapologetic, poetic and fierce songs, from a decidedly female perspective, arrived on the heels of hair metal’s misogyny and the male-dominated heyday of grunge. His songs had an impact on women and men too and that’s why there were 16,000 of us, gathered from the pit to the back wall, to sing and celebrate this spirit.

The songs and their singers may be older, but the feelings were fresh as Morissette and the audience united for “Hand in Pocket,” the opener of her set and a key track from her 1995 opus. Small shredded pill. The album is so instrumental to music that it has won numerous Grammy Awards and Juno Awards, been listed in the Rolling Stone and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Top 100 Albums, and spawned a Broadway musical . “Hand in Pocket” was a great way to start the evening. It’s not the song that made Morissette the alt-rock buzz—that one came much later in the set—but it describes all the worry, confusion, frustration, and ultimately hope that Morissette , her Gen X and millennial fans once shared. and, apparently, that’s still the case.

Nearly 30 years later, a new generation of fans can sing this timeless phrase “I’m young and I’m underpaid, I’m tired but I work, yeahaahhh” and absolutely connect with “Hand in Pocket” and its singer, who incidentally has one of the most unique and recognizable voices in music. In case you’re wondering, she always says it. The Woodlands audience got an up-close-and-personal listen when she and her band fled the stage to a smaller version near the soundboard midway through the set.

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Morissette’s set was full of songs from the all-time classic, Small shredded pill

Photo by Halle Yap, courtesy of The Oriel Co,

There they channeled their MTV unplugged days to play a few acoustic tracks, including “Rest,” a newer song focused on mental health awareness, and “Mary Jane,” a song Pill remarkable who stood up for women who perhaps didn’t feel as empowered as their rock goddess, those who perhaps felt fragile or vulnerable. It was the perfect vehicle for the group’s moment, so to speak, as many of the surrounding audience members – both women and men – survived those feelings of inability or doubt to be there to celebrate with her.

The audience hung on every word she said during the acoustic broadcast. This move to the soundboard was something this music fan had never seen at CWMP, but maybe Morissette will start a new trend there. She’s certainly no stranger to leading the way. A video package shown before her set reminded us that singers like Fiona Apple, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Katy Perry and fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne all cite her as having influenced their music.

The second song of the set – “Right Through You” – was the evening’s best example of what drew many of us to Morissette’s music. When it was first heard almost 30 years ago, it was a scathing accusation against a man who took it “as a joke” and “looked at my bottom for a long time”. It started from a personal point of view, but has become a rallying song for everyone who is fed up with the bullshit of the patriarchy. At the top of the set list, Morissette sang it with even more conviction than it seemed, perhaps supported by the visuals behind her, feminist flashcards of sorts, written in bold white letters.

One of them said “18 countries allow men to prohibit their wives from working”. Another said: “No country in the world has achieved gender equality.” These notions alone may have been enough to inspire Morissette to sing louder or more expressively, but she was surely motivated by many, many young women in the audience, the adult offspring of Generation X who were also present for an evening.

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Morgan Wade

Photo by Halle Yap, courtesy of The Oriel Co,

One of these young people was invited on stage to sing “Ironic” with Morissette but, ironically, he didn’t seem to know the words to one of the headliner’s biggest hits. No matter, she still received a long and warm hug from Morissette, the guardian who was dressed in white and who shone (because she was sweating, it was very hot last night) like a lunar goddess. Morissette chose gestures like this and rushed into the crowd for an intimate acoustic set over scripted speeches and stage workings and it suited us perfectly. More time for more songs, about two dozen in all.

A few choice words she shared were that she and the band were aware of a strict curfew, so they wouldn’t leave the stage only to return moments later for an encore. Instead, she went straight into “Uninvited,” which is still haunting and unlike many diss tracks we’ve ever heard, and “Thank U,” the punctuation mark to an evening where the head of poster and his devotee truly shared this feeling of gratitude.

The openers: Those Father’s Day duties mentioned earlier? Unfortunately, they prevented us from seeing or hearing Morgan Wade’s set. We have it on good authority from our friend in the crowd – a musician and music teacher who we’ll hear more about in a few paragraphs below – that Wade was amazing. We believe her too, since we just saw her crush the Big as Texas Fest, barely a month ago in Conroe.

Joan Jett was the opposite of Morissette, dressed in black (sorry, no photos as the house provided all the images rather than your local Houston Press photographers), but related to their catalogs of female empowerment. As always, she rocked, rolling through timeless gems like “Cherry Bomb” from her Runaways days, “I Love Rock and Roll”, which was the first big song of the evening, “Crimson and Clover” and the set closer, “Bad Reputation.” If you’ve never seen Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and are worried that the weather might have taken its toll on them, don’t worry and buy a ticket to their next outing in your neighborhood. They always bring it, even in the scorching heat of a Houston summer night.

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Morissette invited the crowd to sing songs that became anthems

Photo by Halle Yap, courtesy of The Oriel Co,

Personal bias: Well done to my man, the late Nels Hill. In 1995, he and I were working hard at dead-end jobs, settling slip-and-fall claims for a local grocer, and reporting to a shitty boss, the kind of smug guy who inspired much of the music by Morissette. When his breakthrough worldwide hit “You Shoulda Know” came out, I shared the song with this guy and he saw no artistic merit in it, muttering something about just hearing a bunch of words in F (there is only one in the song) and indecency.

His reprimand stung a little, partly because it was an attack on my musical tastes and partly because he was the boss and I was still too young and stupid to know that I hadn’t need to impress him in any way to keep my job. Luckily my friend Nels was there to make sure Alanis had indeed kicked ass. That she would prove to be the voice of a generation. Nels loved all kinds of music, from “Beer Barrell Polka” to “Blitzkrieg Bop.” He tricked me into sharing Liz Phair with my boss just so he could roll his eyes when this guy would predictably make a rude remark about another alt-rock priestess. Nels was the kind of person you wanted to work with, someone who understood you and your music, and gave the man a big middle finger – just like Alanis.

Random notebook dump: Our local musician friend who attended Morgan Wade’s set also reported from her seat on the lawn that some of the bad actors that Morissette exposed in her music were talking during the concert and making wild remarks about the songs in her set . What kind of brains spends money and effort to endure 100 degree heat, terrible parking situation and high beer prices to attend a show just to spew stupid comments that no one asks or cares about? interested ?

For Luna’s sake, stay home next time, dummies. We try to enjoy the show. If you feel the need to test your sexist “comedy” material on someone, deliver it in your dark, shabby man cave to your fellow troglodytes on TikTok and X. Thanks.