April 24, 1989

Publication title: Montreal Gazette, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Mark LePage

McLachlan Show Has The Right Folk Touch

Hands clasped before her as if she were reciting at a spelling bee, demure young Sarah McLachlan won hearts and influenced people at the Spectrum Saturday night.
Before her were 700 college students anxious to see and hear for themselves if the schoolgirlish McLachlan had the goods to bring her ethereal, pristine album Touch to a club stage.
She convinced them from the outset. Standing alone front and centre, with a mike that looked exceedingly out of place on her head, young Canadian singer-songwriter McLachlan wrapped her classically trained pipes around a traditional Celtic folk song and enraptured the crowd with her talent and her innocent charm.

McLachlan is easily slotted into the category of the sensiitive young female singer, a breed quietly dominating the late ’80s. It’s also a breed that generally can’t hope to conquer a stage, given that romantic introspection generally works better on vinyl.

McLachlan’s stage persona was predictably light as a spring breeze, but a tough band, McLachlan’s crystalline voice and the feeling that one was witnessing the birth of the next Canadian romantic were enough to push the critical needle into the positive zone.
The voice was enough. McLachlan has great range.

Standing stock-still with her acoustic guitar, McLachlan looked every bit the young folkie, a situation she added to by unearthing a Joni Mitchell chestnut from the days when most of her audience, and the singer herself, were gumming pacifiers.

The meaning of the incongruous head mike was made clear when McLachlan covered Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill, her voice almost capturing the song’s theme of revelation.
But it was the aptly name Vox, a radio and video hit, that was the essence of McLachlan : a posied, controlled voice seemingly capable of any note, that made discussions of stage persona or focus irrelevant.