On the other hand, the Alanis Morissette concert at Richardson Field wasn't rained out Saturday . It started only about 10 minutes late. And fans got a good return on their $25 ticket. She was on stage for almost two hours.
The encore - that is, that part of the show that took place after she left the stage for the first time - was about 25 percent of the whole performance. Anyone who started the trek back to the parking lot as Morissette's musicians began draping "For Sale" banners over their equipment missed some great stuff.
"Ironic" was greeted with huge applause. She didn't lose the crowd even when she took the song off into some unfamiliar directions. After she returned from a second brief exit, Morissette turned "You Learn" into a pie fight as she and some of the stage crew pursued the band members with cream pies and sprayed the stage with aerosol silly string.
Morissette took a pie or two as well, knocked over most of the drum kit, then settled behind what remained to lead the audience in a tribute to "more arena rock." The crowd appropriately responded, "We will rock you!"
There was still more to come. Starting a capella she soothed the faithful for the finale with an acoustic rendition of the beautiful lyric poem that's anonymously appended to the unlisted 13th track on her multi-platinum album, "Jagged Little Pill." With that, she'd said it all, and that was only the encore.
"Jagged Little Pill," her first album for Madonna's Maverick Records, has been on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart for 77 weeks and has been certified platinum 13 times over for American sales in excess of 13 million units.
Why does she inspire hostility?
Because she's not the first woman to have written about sexism, a traumatic Catholic upbringing, and dysfunctional male-female relationships?
Because she started out as teen-age Canadian pop artist instead of springing fully formed out of the politcally correct riot grrrl scene?
Because she's enjoying greater commercial success than some of the other female artists?
Whatever. Her lyric perspectives are fresh insights for most of her young fans. Her frankness may be too much for squeamish prudes but her songs would have less worth and her lyrics less relevance if she confined herself to bland G-rated phrases.
Her fans may indeed range from pre-teens to retirees, but most of the fans who paid $25 to see her at Richardson Field appeared to be in their teens or twenties, and remarkably diverse - groups of guys with military haircuts, locals, teens, adults with pre-school children, and a large number of couples.
Not that fans were hard to please. Many yelled and screamed when she burped before breaking into "Hand In My Pocket."
Morissette proved herself a energetic concert act, triggering an apparently furious and muddy mosh pit. She spent much of the show running wildly across the stage or jerking her head around to send her long dark hair flying over her head.
Viewed from a considerable distance across a sea of waving hands and bobbing heads she looked just like one of the boys as she alternated between singing and playing harmonica or guitar.
Although the muddy moshers may not have been paying attention to her, and many people unable to get close to the action spent much of the show yakking among themselves, Morissette gave her fans everything they'd come to hear. She did every song off "Jagged Little Pill" that is, and more.