NOTE: All photos are copyright of Howard Shiau Photography 2025
The last time we caught Sarah McLachlan, she performed with the New York Pops at Forest Hills Stadium in NYC. Fast forward through the pandemic and it’s now been thirty years since her breakthrough album “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” was released! That record was also my introduction to this amazing artist and it remains one of my favorite albums. Touring to celebrate that anniversary, McLachlan stopped at ArtPark in Lewiston on June 18th during a heat wave where temperatures felt almost 100 degrees when doors opened!
The opener for this show was fellow Canadian singer/songwriter Fest (aka Leslie Feist). It wasn’t a surprise that McLachlan would have a female artist open since she also founded the Lilith Fair festival (consisting of only female artists or female led bands) back in the 90s. Feist, also a former Broken Social Scene member, played an unexpected but pleasant twelve song set. It seemed that many in the audience were not familiar with Feist but enjoyed her performance.
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Before Sarah McLachlan took the stage, a recorded announcement came over the speakers, with McLachlan talking about her foundation which funds her three Schools of Music. These schools, located in Vancouver, Surrey, and Edmonton, provide musical education to children completely free of charge. If you’re interested in donating to this worthy cause, you can do so here.
McLachlan took the stage, wearing a full length white dress, and kicked off the show with “Sweet Surrender”, a hit from her best selling album “Surfacing”. She explained that, while the tour is all about “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy”, she would start out with some songs from other records first. These songs comprised of songs from “Surfacing”, “Afterglow”, and “Shine On”, including her top hit “Adia”. Her voice was immaculate as always but her backup singer was also amazingly good!
After “Witness” and an outfit change, from her white dress to a black dress (it had cooled down a bit by now), McLachlan kicked off the “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” portion of the set with the opening track “Possession”.
She would the play the full album in sequential order with the highlight (for me) being “Fear”, where McLachlan really shows that her vocal range is as great as it ever was. The high notes of that song were truly incredible!! A crowd favorite was “Ice Cream” with many in the crowd singing along. She wrapped up the main set with the title track “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” and, after a brief time off-stage, she came back for the encore. The first song of the encore was a new song, “Gravity”, and she closed the show with “Angel”, probably the most well-known of her songs due to its association with a certain ASPCA commercial on animal cruelty. With Sarah McLachlan’s voice still sounding fantastic, I can’t imagine not seeing her perform as long as she still wants to tour.
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