Review: Matchbox Twenty and Alanis Morrisette – Air Canada Center

The verdict: Some odd choices of mix tapes brought on the road trip.

Jill, Krista, Mike and I hit the road around 12:30 in some snowy conditions. I enjoyed a few games of Crazy 8 countdown with Jill in the backseat and marveled at my copy of Eddie Vedder’s Into the Wild soundtrack (on vinyl!) that I had delivered to Krista’s place (so I could get two copies).

After random stop-off points such as the Wendy’s truck stop (which had some lackluster beef jerky, but also had chicken nuggets in a vacuum bag!) we arrived at Katie’s place around 6:00PM. Katie is off to Mexico but was gracious enough to lend us her pad while we were in Toronto. After a quick few beers, we hopped on the subway to head out to the Air Canada Center. Krista is from this neighbourhood of Toronto so she knew the lay of the land (for the most part) and we got to the Air Canada Center with ease. We had already missed MuteMath by the time we got there and I think Alanis was just getting started.

Off to the bar we went where some ladies were out for a good time but had a few harsh words for the size of wine they got for the extraordinary price they paid. We decided to go all out (we are on a road trip after all) and get the large beer at the ACC. $13 later a tear came down my eye. Another one would come out of my eye later on when I realize that when I want to buy two, a $20 bill can’t even cover it.

We went into the arena where Alanis was in full force with a track off of Jagged Little Pill. We crushed ourselves into our seats on the floor like the sardines that we are and settled in for the night. Let it be known that the seats on the floor at the Scotiabank Place in Ottawa are quite larger…large enough for my ass not to hang off the sides (and I would like to think that I don’t have that large of an ass – naysayers, meet me at the Pool doors at 3:00). It didn’t help that the woman next to me invaded my $70 seat space. Mike can vouch for me as we switched spots at one point in the night and he was wondering if the girl was getting close to him or not.

Alanis was entertaining in the fact that I have never seen her live. I only have her Jagged Little Pill album also and she ended up playing the hits off of that. She also played some other hits and some tunes from her forthcoming album. All in all, musically it was great, performance wise she’s definitely different than the Jagged Little Pill Alanis (let’s be honest here…it was 15 years ago!). But there she was just walking back and forth on the stage…one side to the other. Our heads just kept following her along. Not much going on there. Coupled with the leather pants and sequin shirt, we had some questions that needed to be answered.

All in all, it was still a decent opener although the crowd all sat down. LAME!

After picking up a few more beer and sneaking Krista into the men’s washroom (you would think with the technology out there, someone would develop a faster toilet for women), Matchbox Twenty hit the stage with their new hit single How Far We’ve Gone. Their LED lighting rig is exactly like the Nine Inch Nails Summer With Teeth tour and they are pretty neat. Two or three songs in, Paul Doucette’s guitar crapped out on them right before a song began and took a few moments to fix which had Rob Thomas lying on the floor from embarrassment at being at a big rock show and not being able to rock.

What can I say? I find Kyle Cook is a little more mellow these days, it’s strange to see the old drummer as a guitarist but the singer and the bassist seem to be the same as always. Excellent show man that Rob Thomas is. They went through all the good hits (Matchbox Twenty has a gazillion of them…they are the modern-age Beatles (hits-wise, not creativity-wise)) and I was surprised to hear a few songs like Hang and Back 2 Good which are some faves of mine. Kyle also got to shine a few times with some great solos.

We were all impressed by the concert put on by Matchbox Twenty and I’m glad we got to see them on a Greatest Hits tour rather than an album oriented tour as I got to see some songs that I never saw before.

Let it be known that Mike let us know that the encore kind of glazed over him as he had been up since 5 in the morning, had not eaten since lunch and was enjoying the beer at the ACC. Krista and I also felt good but at least we remember what the heck happened during the encore!

Considering our need for food in our stomach, we hit the town and went to the first place in the area. We went into The Loose Moose on York Street where I went to the front desk and said “A table for three please” and they said “Seat yourself!”. I didn’t look behind them to realize that the entire place was virtually empty!

After having an excellent pastrami sandwich and a beer, I had the urge to dance and Krista attempted to teach me how to waltz. Clearly I do not have any inherent dancing abilities so it didn’t go too well. We also attempted to continue the waltz on the subway ride home which was quite difficult whenever the subway would throw on the brakes.

We hit home, Mike crashed and Krista and I stayed up for awhile to have another beer before retiring from the excellent night. Two thumbs up for both Alanis and Matchbox Twenty.

Alanis Setlist:
MORATORIUM INTRO
UNINVITED
ALL I REALLY WANT * We showed up in the middle of this song. Too bad we missed out on Uninvited!
8 EASY STEPS
HAND IN MY POCKET
CITIZEN OF THE PLANET
MORATORIUM
EVERYTHING
MY HUMPS
YOU OUGHTA KNOW
YOU LEARN
THANK YOU
IRONIC

Matchbox Twenty Setlist:
To come when our concert recording shows up! They were selling USB wristbands after the show for $35 with a concert recording on them. We ended up ordering it from the website so we should see it in a few weeks.