27th June 2012
For a generation 1995's Jagged Little Pill represented the tracks of their years. Whilst Alanis Morissette has never quite recaptured the same commercial success, she still has a core of loyal fans who were eager to see her perform at the sold out concert at the 02 Academy Brixton.
After singing her first number (I remain part 1) off stage, she appeared to a deafening roar from the crowd to kick off her high octane set with the punchyWoman Down, from her forthcoming album Havoc and Bright Lights and Havoc (due out in August). She darts around the stage in a mercurial fashion, it's rather hard to watch initially and it takes a good few numbers for her to settle down at ease behind a guitar.
The teen angst that once made her so popular has made way for a different sound in a different era. Songs such as Forgiven and All I really Want that once represented youth are now anthems.
Whilst she still has the same passion and fire that we saw in earlier albums, now a wife and mother it seems that her energy has shifted to a different place as displayed in the wonderfully catchy melody of Guardian (another new song).
She closed the set with a new song Numb. This is the I Oughta Know for the thirty-something prozac generation. Whilst the latter song is now sung with a wry smile and, this new song has a chorus with a bitter edge we have come to know and love in Alanis' work.
Here comes the feeling, I run from the feeling and reach for the drug, Can't sit with this feeling, I'd rather be flying and comfortably numb.
This song roused the audience so much that they were head banging along to its Evanescence and Paramore like sound. The fact that she appears to have rearranged most of her set to this heavier backing shows her progressive abilities as a musician. Perhaps she is trying to entice a new angst ridden teen audience to her music. If the taster of her new album is anything to go by, they just might.