Alanis Morissette was incredibly angry for precisely four minutes and nine seconds in 1995, but the reputation has stuck. The remarkable kiss-off “You Oughta Know” ripped a hole in the pop-rock world, becoming a feminist battle cry for the ages. Then Morissette went to India, found some version of God and now, 30 years later, exists as a kind of ethereally blissful philosopher slash doula type; a crunchy granola goddess with shockingly crystal-clear pipes and a frankly enviable ability to switch between performative rage and pretty wailing. Her Pyramid Stage set on Friday evening, marking (somewhat inexplicably) her Glastonbury debut, was a case in point: Morissette at her most radiant and breezy, yet a bulletproof run of Nineties smashes bringing out the beast in her.
“Here we go, real music,” goes a (possibly mean, definitely middle-aged, maybe sorta kinda right) gentleman behind me at the top of this set, Morissette launching into “Hand In My Pocket”, an accordion-filled soft-rock banger, underpinned by cries of being young and underpaid and eager for some kind of reprieve from life’s blows.
