One of the last remaining Christmas presents was a trip into Seattle to see Sarah McLachlan and Friends tonight. No, she wasn't performing with Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe and Monica, just with Butterfly Boucher (rhymes with voucher), along with wife and husband Melissa McLelland and Luke Doucet.
The format was brilliant - instead of the usual opening band schtick, the guests (the latter two of which have been backing band members before) were integrated into the evening, so at 8:03 pm we kicked of with Sarah herself. The guests got feature spots a few times during the evening and were mostly excellent, with the possible exception of BB's depressing song written in the North of England when she was particularly depressed. Even that was only meh, rather than outright bad.
The stage, sound and lighting were incredibly good. Sarah's voice continues to be amazing, and she can sing the vast majority of her repertoire live just as well as any studio recording. Her voice was crystal clear and beautiful on most songs. To be honest, I haven't been keeping close tabs on her career of late, so Laws of Illusion kind of passed me by last year. The songs from it were ok, never bad, but the high points for me were definitely the pre-2000 material. Hold On was simply brilliant. It's amazing to think a 20-something year old could come up with such an emotionally intense yet mature song about loss.
Sarah's first couple of albums were stellar, but often ignored live, so it was very nice to hear Path of Thorns - I think it suprised her how good it is in retrospect.
The highlight, though, was Possession, which ended the main part of the concert. Peter Stroud rocked the house on lead from one side, with Luke Doucet adding on from the other, while Butterfly Boucher kicked in with the amazing bass lines. Vince Jones keyboards were vital, of course. Maybe it's because Possession was the first Sarah McLachlan song I ever heard (the ultra hard rock version from the rare CD single) bit this was easily the high point of the evening (but not, apparently, for the potheads around us for whom the entire evening was the high point...)
The encore was lower key, with Angel (well received) and Ice Cream (ok singalong) which ended with Sarah improvising notes and ending with one terrible off key note - the only one of the night, really - that cracked her up nd precipitated the end to the song and the evening.
So, overall, an A+ for Sarah and a solid A for everyone else.
Oh, the eclipse? The guy in front of me was maybe 6' 4" with a giant planetoid of a head (I swear it had it's own ecosystem) so Isaw the entire concert with my head tilted to one side or the other trying to see the stage. I did think of complaining, but what can you say? "Shrink your head, buddy, it's eclipsing my view of the stage"? Oh well...
