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In between the activities of Social Media Week which I will be telling you about soon, I trekked to the arts district of Pomona to see Alanis Morissette, who filled my teen years with a mix of bitter and courageous anthems that somehow came along at the right time to speak for a generation. Not pimply but somewhat angst-ridden (for the typical first-world silly reasons), I knew most of 1996′s “Jagged Little Pill” by heart (probably like the 33 million other people who bought this as well) and I still rock her “Unplugged” while sitting in traffic. I’d wanted to see her for a long time so was pumped the stars aligned and I was finally able to see her live last night.

Souleye

Taking my leather arm-chair seat in the loge (props to Fox Theater), I arrived to see Souleye, Alanis’ husband, opening the show and shouting out his “beautiful wife” throughout his short, chill hip-hop set. Earning some new fans like myself, I vowed to check his stuff out after the show. A few minutes after 9 PM, Alanis started singing offstage and took centerstage like the image on the curtain behind her, her long, brown hair flowing behind her. “Whipping her hurr” from side to side while she crossed the stage, she covered each inch of territory, smiling every so often and looked like she thoroughly enjoyed being present in that moment. Performing songs from “Jagged Little Pill” to the delight of the crowd roaring back the lyrics on songs like “You Oughta Know”, “You Learn” and “Ironic”, she also introduced her new album, “Havoc and Bright Lights” doing new tracks like “Guardian” and “Woman Down”. She rocked on guitar and harmonica and changed my mind on several songs that might not have been my favorite on some of her records but take on a life of their own live. As Wu might say, she alternated between mellow and bringing the m-fin “havoc”.