whitesail

First off, everyone spend the rest of your Sunday sending out prayers and healing thoughts to Sarah, her family and the band. Everyone is sick. Ash has pneumonia, Sean had the flue, India was so sick she was hallucinating, and Sarah was so sick you could tell from the get-go. She was also so sick she cut five songs from the setlist. No Wait, Witness, Fear, Solsbury Hill or Dirty Little Secret.

World on Fire
Building a Mystery
Adia
Perfect Girl
Drifting
Push
I Will Remember You
Time
Blackbird
Answer
Angel
Fallen
Train Wreck
Stupid
Sweet Surrender
Possession
***********
Ice Cream
Hold On
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

I was pretty damn upset, not at Sarah, but just at the circumstances. First and only show we’ll get to see and this happens. She also didn’t sing with the Perishers.

On the bright side, what she did play, she and the band sounded great. She sang her heart out. Towards the end you could see she was just barely hanging on.

Highlights:

Hold On - Not the up tempo rocking Hold On from the FTE era, but very similar to the album version, which is my favorite. It was absolutely perfect. Sarah played a very electric Gretsch that gave it more of an edge than the album version, but definitely not the FTE Live version.

Possession - We didn’t get to see her last summer, so this was the first time we’ve seen her do the piano/electric hybrid of Possession. It was most excellent! The band cooked and roasted the audience. Sarah didn’t hold that final note like she usually does and still killed the crowd.

Stupid - Amazing song live. Vocals, guitars, sounds, lighting. Very cool indeed.

Angel - This song was an absolute testament to Sarah as an artist and entertainer and a person. She really struggled with her voice on this song. It wasn’t the high notes that she was having problems with but the lower ones. You could see her feeling her voice out and finding what she could do with what she had. The result was the most touching live rendition of this song I’ve heard out of 16 performances. By the end, she seemed to have found what she could do and finished it most beautifully. It was amazing.

Time - Very cool version. Acoustic. Great song and great arrangement.

Train Wreck - I was really looking forward to the live treatment of this song. Very much liked it, but I kind of emotionally missed the first half of it because I knew that Wait, Witness and Fear came before it. At that point I knew that I wouldn’t be hearing three of my favorite songs and it pretty much disrupted me for about 2-3 minutes.

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy - This song is so good it’s scary. Sarah and the band just nailed it. Hand dancing. Vocals at the end were incredible. I was still thinking Dirty Little Secret was coming up, but there was no second encore. Fumbling is still a pretty damn good way to end a Sarah show.

Perfect Girl and Drifting - Both these songs took on new life for me when they were performed live. Perfect Girl is one of the songs off of Afterglow that sounded like the old FTE days. I loved the guitars in Drifting, particularly Luke’s. Very good surprise live.

The band was so good. Ash was holding down the beats. Brian Minato is still one of the best bass players around. Vince Jones and David Kershaw were great on keys…first time seeing David live…he’s a nut, having the time of his life playing music. The background singer, didn’t get her name, sounded very good and had to to help Sarah out. Sean and Luke were fantastic. Acoustic, electric, effects, and slide. They just kicked ass. We were right in front of Luke. First row just off to the right. Very cool. Luke also made a little girl’s night by giving her a guitar pick at he end of the show. You should have seen her little face light up. It was great!

I felt so bad for Sarah, though. She sang her heart out, and one thing about her - 75% of Sarah McLachlan is pretty much better than anything else out there. I think she missed about 2-3 notes, which I’ve never heard from her before…a little flat those times. But, it was amazing to watch her work her way through the set, particularly during Angel. It was watching a Master at work under incredibly difficult circumstances.

Once again, get out those healing prayers and thoughts, Reiki, divine light and whatever else you got in your bag of tricks and send them Sarah’s way….for her and everyone else in her family and band. They need them badly.

“We love you Sarah” - some fan
“Even when I sound like I have a clothespin on my nose?” - Sarah