This story was submitted by Linnea, she originally posted it on JamList and it was crossposted on the AlanisFanCircle mailing list.

hey!

okay well i hardly EVER post but this is an exception!! i am more of an observer on these email lists but its time for me to say hey lol.
i just have this amazing story to share and i know that a lot of you know about it already but i felt the need to type it out and just let everyone know how amazing alanis really is. okay this is really long but please read it, its a great story and it will show a side of alanis that is really rare. well, i am from boston and heather, glenn and my friend erin drove 8 hours to ottawa at fucking 5am on saturday morning. it took 8 hours to get there and we practically got deported at the canadian border lol but we finally got there and checked into our hotel, yay travelodge lol. we thought it was going to be much cheaper than it was but it was all good.
so we just walked around ottawa a little bit on saturday night and saw parliament hill which is where the concert was going to be on sunday. and there is this fountain with an eternal flame that people can throw money in and make a wish, and i am usually not very superstitious but i just threw a quarter in and wished that i would meet alanis. i have had several encounters with her before and have her autograph on many things but i have never talked to her or had a conversation with her. but that was about to change!
so on sat nite, they were doing a sound check for the concert and heather, erin and i like made friends with this security guard because we were trying to figure out if alanis was going to do her soundcheck that night or not. so we asked him and he wouldn't tell us but he finally gave in and said that he had heard rumors that alanis was going to be there tonite. so when i learned this, i was like, i am not moving from here until i see alanis. so the way that the stage was set up was like there was the stage and then all these VIP seats where the prime minister and wicked important people were going to sit . in order to sit there, you needed an invitation from the canadian government so lets just say it was kinda hard to sit in these seats. so then there were these barricades which separated the vip section from the grass which is where everyone else would be standing. so we were just hanging out , waiting by the barricades and we decide to try to go backstage. it wasn't blocked off since it was only soundcheck and there weren't that many people around. so we walked around to the back and just pretended to be taking pictures of the parliament building and then all of a sudden, we hear this woman announcing that alanis is on stage so i run like the fastest i have ever run in my life to the front of the stage and we watch her sing you learn. it was so awesome and she looked so cute in a red jacket with jeans. she just looked so happy. it was great. so then we decided that if we wanted to have any sort of chance to meet her, we would have to go backstage again and try to stop her when she finished her soundcheck and was walking off the stage. so she started singing narcissus and we went back behind the stage again. we sat down like on this wall right across from where alanis would exit the stage and so me and heather are like talking and erin is walking around to see if alanis is off the stage. all of a sudden, i look up and see alanis walking like right in front of where we were sitting!!! i thought that i was going to like stop breathing but somehow i managed to call out her name, but it wasn't loud enough for her to hear so i said it louder. so she looked up at us and waved. at this point, we were walking towards her and we waved back and i asked if it would be okay if we said hey to her and she said yes. so we walked over to her and her bodyguard and i couldn't believe how little she is, like she is sooo tiny, but so adorable. i couldn't believe that we were right next to her, and we told her that we were from boston and drove 8 hours just to see her. she seemed so happy and amazed when we said that. she was smiling like nonstop and it was so adorable. so heather asked if she could have a hug and alanis said yes. and then i asked if i could have one too and alanis said: "no, can i give you a hug??" ahhhhhhhh this is when i thought i was going to faint but i managed to say yes and she gave me the best hug ever, like it lasted for like so long and it was so hard to let her go. when she hugged me, i said something lame, like "i can't believe that this is happening" lol at least i didn't faint. well then heather asked if narcissus was going to be the first single and alanis said YES!!! and we also asked about if the new cd will be released in october and she confirmed that!! oh yeah, we were also telling her about how our hotel was ripping us off and charging us a fortune to stay there and how we had to spend so much on gas for the car and she was very sympathetic to hear that. we weren't like complaining or trying to ask her for money or anything like that. we were just trying o make conversation and since heather was feeling brave enough to ask her questions, i was able to talk to her too and not just stare at alanis like an idiot lol.
so she asked us if we were going to be at the concert tomorrow nite and of course we said that we were and she said that it was going to be crazy. so that was cool. i had bought a hat from this store called Roots earlier that day and was wearing it so i asked her to sign it and she did and i gave her this little pin that was made of metal wire and i bought it off this vendor earlier that night. i told the guy her name and he like bent this wire and it turned into her name lol. its hard to explain but it was pretty cool. so i gave that to her and she thanked me. i couldn't help notice that she seemed like really happy to talk to us. she was smiling a lot and she didn't like rush us at all. i would say that the conversation lasted for about 7 or 8 minutes. so she said that she should get going and we thanked her so much for talking to us and we said bye and she walked with her bodyguard to where her white van was waiting for her. then we talked to joel for a minute and he gave me and heather a guitar pick from his pocket, which was really sweet of him.
sooooo after this meeting, i seriously couldn't stop smiling and i felt like i was going to cry but i resisted somehow. it was always my goal to meet her like on my own terms and not like at a meet and greet because if it was spontaneous then it would mean that alanis met me when she like wasn't required to or anything, like she would be if it was at a meet and greet. she could have just waved to us and walked away but she took time out to talk to us and that was just too sweet.
but this is not the end, it gets better!!!!! so we walked around to the front of the stage and we were still in shock over what just happened and we walked like through the grass area to the entrance of parliament hill. all of a sudden, we hear someone like calling us over and we turn around and it is ALANIS!!!! she is in the back seat of her van, with the door open, like motioning for us to come over to the car. i did like a double take and like couldn't believe that it was her so we walked over to the car and she asked us if we knew who mark, her manager, was and i think that we said yeah, even though i really didn't have a clue who he was. but anyways she told us that he had passes to give us and he was still backstage. so she told us to go back there to pick up the passes!!!!!!!!! i thought that she must be kidding but she was serious. we thanked her like over and over and i looked right at her and held my hand out to shake hers and she shook it and said thank you.
she smiled and said "your welcome" and she said bye to us again and closed the door and the van drove off. okay this is getting so long and i am sorry about that. if you are still reading then that is awesome and thank you. so we walk around to the backstage area again and we find this guy mark. well first we found these 2 guys that alanis went to high school with. so we asked them what she was like in school and they said they she was very ambitious and that was even odvious in school but she was well liked and that she was a nice girl. they said that she was a little traumatized because every day in their homeroom class, they would play oh canada, but it was the version that alanis sang and she had to listen to this every day so i guess it was kinda weird for her. so anyways, mark, her manager, comes over to us and he is like reaching in his bag for something to give us. he takes out 2 $100 dollar bills and hands one to heather and one to me and says that alanis wanted us to have it and then he gives all 3 of us a backstage pass that is for her under rug swept 2001 tour and it says vip right on it. i couldn't even believe that i was holding an actual backstage pass. this is something that i always like dreamed of getting but they are so hard to get and so i found it to be so unreal!! well we were in shock that alanis had given us like 200 dollars plus the passes, it was like so incredible. you never really hear about alanis giving things like that to fans and the fact that after we met her, she went looking for us to tell us that she had these passes for us, was so generous and amazing. i know that i will always remember this night and i hope that alanis remembers us too and so since i made this wish in the fountain earlier that night, i guess it was worth it since it came true. so the next night was the canada day thrill on the hill concert and i am going to summarize this because i am getting tired from typing all this lol.
so we were able to make friends with this cop and he let us in when he saw that we had the alanis vip pass. well, we weren't allowed to sit in the vip seats since we needed a special canada day vip pass for that and it was reserved for really important people but this woman from the cbc tv station came over to us and told us that we could hang out in the vip tent where all of the record executives and other canadian performers were hanging out and there was a big screen tv in there and we could watch the show on that. so we went into this tent and there was all this food and so we got to eat and there were a lot of people around but we didn't know them since they were more famous in canada than the US. so we almost got to sit right in the front row of the vip seats because this guy came into the tent and asked all of us to follow him and he would put us up front so we did and then we were like running after him but somehow we lost him and all of these cops demanded to see our pass and we just had the alanis one which wasn't the right one so they kicked us out. but we got back in through a side entrance and we went back into the VIP tent lol. then this other guy came into the tent and we told him that we were from boston and he seemed to know about us lol. he said that he would try to get us backstage and we had to follow him to the area right behind the stage. as we were walking over, i looked up and it was like 2 minutes before alanis was singing her final song of the night which was you learn. so i looked up and saw her walking with her band, towards the stage. so she saw us and she started waving!! i waved back and then she like kept walking since she had to go onstage but she waved which was so cool!! so this guy wasn't able to get us backstage and we got kicked out again lol. so we watched her sing you learn from the crowd which was fine and she looked so happy and beautiful. i was in awe of her. she was awesome. then we had this stuff to give her, like a scrapbook from fans from amnet and some letters that heather and i had written her earlier that day, thanking her for the passes and money. so we tried to find her parents who were sitting in the front row of the vip seats but we couldn't and then i saw EJ, who is alanis' assistant, and we called him over to us and told him that we were the girls from boston and he seemed to know of us too lol. we asked him to give her the bag with the stuff and i asked him to thank her so much for being so generous and amazing to us. he was really cool and said that he would do that for us. so i hope that she read my letter and i am sure that she loved the scrapbook from tons of people on amnet.
okay well that is the story and it is as detailed as i can manage. did i leave anything out heather???! i am sorry that it is so long but i am just so excited about it and i couldn't leave out a single detail. my love for alanis has like moved onto this whole new level. i never thought that she would be so giving and generous to us, it was so amazing and it just proves that she really cares about her fans and i can't wait for the new cd and the US tour, hopefully in the fall. i am going to use and abuse this pass as often as i can!!! thanks for reading and have a great night!!

~from, Linnea~