October 30, 2014
Publication title: Edmonton Sun, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Mike Ross
Sarah McLachlan captivates Edmonton audience at the Winspear Centre
It’s a well-known fact that great singers are suckers for slow songs. Sarah McLachlan is another example of this phenomenon – she makes the Cowboy Junkies look like the Ramones.
For context, know that the Junkies are a notoriously laid-back Canadian folk-pop band whose fans would rush to the front of the stage at concerts – only to sit cross-legged on the floor in rapt attention. McLachlan, meanwhile, was for a brief time the Canadian Queen of Female Pop, creator of Lilith Fair and enough of a hit-making powerhouse to spur respected music magazines like Rolling Stone into declaring, largely in her honour, the Year of Women in Music, back in the day. It was almost 20 years ago, not to make you feel old or anything.
McLachlan has since settled into a comfortable niche, balancing motherhood and philanthropy with music and able to score a No. 1 album in Canada for her latest record Shine On, despite there being no charting hit singles. That’s a true hallmark of a cult success. From here she can do no wrong, and basically whatever she wants. Her die-hard fans are with her all the way.
She remains a sucker for the slow songs. Who else would set up a living room suite on stage for contest-winning fans to kick back and get mellow with the star, up close and personal? That’s really the only complaint from the first of two sold-out shows in the Winspear Centre on Wednesday night: that maybe she should leave the “meet ‘n’ greet” backstage where it belongs, instead of wasting valuable on-stage time with fan pictures and questions, time that could’ve been spent on music. No complaints from the lucky fans, of course.
The show opened not with a flash and bang, but with the unassuming star giving a quick “hey” to the audience, introducing the first song, In Your Shoes, saying it’s inspired by Pakistani teen activist Malala Yousafzai; the song was written before the girl became the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history.
McLachlan, a true anti-diva, later offered a more personal inspirational message. She said, “In these dark times … remember to be kind and good to ourselves and each other.” General agreement could be heard. Cue World On Fire. See? Even when she’s trying for light, she tends to be dark. She alluded to her 2008 divorce, saying it was a “rather lumpy” time in her life, and later revealed she’s since found a new love, which inspired what you’d imagine would be a happy song from the new album. The title? Brink of Destruction. She explained she prefers focusing on the “underbelly” of love because it’s “more meaty and juicy.”
While several songs boasted a pulse, some approaching rock ‘n’ roll, ballads comprised the bulk of the show. And it was the ballads that had the most impact. Early on, her 1997 hit Adia was melted down and recast in an even more minimal setting than the original recording. She followed that up with solo piano rendition of Answers, with her backing band adding little but humming back-up vocals. The effect was mesmerizing. The second set opened with Song For My Father – her dad passed away four years ago – rendered only with acoustic instruments, followed with her 1999 hit I Will Remember You. New arrangements of old hits were much appreciated, giving the familiar songs new life for both the artist and fans.
Maybe we forgot how great she is. It has been a while. The big buildings and the Lilith fields tended to obscure her true strengths, in subtlety, in her captivating sense of melody, in her knack for laying bare the pain of heartbreak, and in her bewitching voice rich in the lower register, haunting in the high notes, and with that sensual vocal hitch in between that can bring strong men to their knees. Women, too, judging from the shouts of “We love you, Sarah!” that punctuated the evening. It’s clear a concert hall is where McLachlan belongs. That’s where slow songs shine the brightest.
