The entire 14th year of life was spent under the safety blanket of my Discman’s headphones. It was 1996 and I was ensconced in the kind of teenage angst that plagues kids who really have nothing to worry about. My soundtrack? Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette.
I loved this album so much that twenty years later, inspired by a conversation with a fellow Alanis fan Thyrza Ging, I hosted a Jagged Little Pill sing along party in a pub called MVP in Dublin 8. I thought my friends and a few others would want to come but the Facebook event page soon had nearly 1,000 Alanifans looking for tickets.
That night in September 2016 was the beginning of one of my most fun, gas and joyful projects, the Sing Along Social, a zero-commitment choir for people who can’t really sing. On that night, when 100 Alanifans gathered upstairs in MVP spontaneously throwing plastic spoons into the air for the lines of “It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife”, I wished I could set up a portal to my teenage self and show her that everything was going to be ok.
The news that Morissette is coming to Dublin and Cork next year brings me back to seeing her in the SFX centre in 1996. My Dad, Eugene, brought my sister and I to see her. We didn’t have tickets to this sold out show but my Dad knew how much we wanted to go, so he got them at triple the original cost from a tout outside the concert. My dad’s a pretty cool guy.
I will be at my desk this Monday morning when tickets are released to make sure Eugene doesn't have to bail me out this time. And I think 2018 is definitely the time for another Jagged Little Pill Sing Along Social. Only this time, I'm going to need a bigger boat.
Alanis Morissette plays Live at the Marquee, Cork on Wednesday, July 4th and the Iveagh Gardens, Dublin on Thursday, July 5th. Tickets on sale on Monday at 9am fromticketmaster.ie.
