Alanis Morissette And Matchbox Twenty Remember The '90s

At first I didn't understand pairing Alanis Morissette with Matchbox Twenty, but the reasoning soon became apparent: Friday night at the Air Canada Centre was every '90s child's dream. When I took my seat in the acoustically-challenged arena, however, the 20- and 30-somethings hadn't yet arrived, so I was feeling rather youthful. That is, of course, until I noticed quite a few of the others in the room had brought their seven-year-old grandchildren with them.

I wondered how the peculiar cross-section of young and old would take to show-openers Mute Math. I'd already seen live at Toronto's Virgin Festival and their electro alt.rock sound wasn't exactly in line with the other two acts on the bill. But regardless of genre, the New Orleans quartet seemed to wow the crowd with their four-song set, especially with closer "Break The Same." Singer Paul Meany did his trademark flips and handstands on his keyboard while drummer Darren King played his bass drum from on top of the same apparently unbreakable keyboard. Mute Math pulled out all the stops, but it felt like they'd just started when they had to leave the stage. More from them would have made my night.

Morissette took the stage after an intro where her voice was heard, while her place on centre stage was bare. Canada's onetime darling — who has thankfully gone back to her long dark hair — knew better than to stray too far from her most well-known songs. She kicked things off with "Uninvited" and then went on to sing "Hand In My Pocket," "You Oughta Know," "You Learn" and "Ironic" during the rest of her hour-long set.

The highlight of Morissette's performance wasn't the 16-year-old girls fist-pumping during "Ironic," though. It was when she declared, "A little lovin' to Fergie," and wrapped a neon pink boa around her neck. The band then fawned over her while she did her famed YouTube version of the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps." Morissette performed exactly the way I would expect, slow-motion head-banging and all.

Matchbox Twenty gave exactly what I expected too: two hours of realizing I know way more Matchbox Twenty than I'd like to admit. Rob Thomas even did his trademark constipated facial expression while appearing to pat a small child on the head. The band ran through standards "Real World," "3 a.m." and "Bent." They even threw in a cover of Naked Eyes' "Always Something There To Remind Me" during their encore, prefacing it by saying they'd only done it once before.

If what you wanted to relive the '90s, this was the show for you. It's too bad Mute Math weren't playing their own headlining gig; now that is one I'd pay to see. And you should too.

Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas (Photo by Carrie Musgave)