Sarah McLachlan and Friends Concert

Sarah McLachlan is my most favorite artist ever. I have been a fan of hers for the past 15 years or more. I first fell in love with her song “Possession” in high school, and then my husband introduced me to the rest of her music when we started dating. Her music holds a lot of memories of that time in our lives. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is the soundtrack to our love story. We were lucky to get to see her in concert back when we were in college. She played at Stephen’s Auditorium on the Iowa State campus.

Sarah has had two albums out since I saw her last and she’s mostly been playing in large stadiums. I’ve been to a few concerts at stadiums and don’t care for them much. So when my sister (also a huge fan) found out she was playing at the Orpheum Theatre, which is relatively small compared to an arena, we knew we had to go. We were not disappointed. It was a great concert. Instead of having an opening act, she had Butterfly Boucher and Melissa McClelland as her back-up singers. Butterfly and Melissa are singer/songwriters in their own right and so they played several of their own songs throughout the performance, with Sarah singing back-up for them.

Sarah McLachlan is a true entertainer and impeccable performer. Her voice was crisp, clear and angelic. She sang energetically in all 25 songs, plus 2 encore songs, and seemed to be having the best time. The highlights for me were “Stupid,” “To Feel Love” (Butterfly), “Answer,” and “World on Fire” from the first set. From the second set we were treated to “Segovia” (Melissa) “Forgiveness,” “Hold On” and “Sweet Surrender,” which I’ve never heard sound better than the way they performed it last night.

Throughout the evening Sarah answered questions from the audience and gave humorous and enlightening answers. We got to hear about how she likes to dance naked to Michael Jackson with her little girls and how her song “Angel” is about heroin addiction. She even poked fun at her ASPCA commercials (which were very successful at raising money by the way).

Sarah commented how she gets “so much joy from singing sad songs.” Well, I get so much joy listening to sad songs, especially from her. For some strange reason, the beautiful sadness of her music makes me happy. At the end of the show she thanked “everyone for supporting live music.” Oh, my sister and I intend on continuing to support live music! With such great performances at our fingertips, how can we not?

And of course, what concert isn’t complete without a t-shirt?