Sarah McLachlan – The Mann Center – Philadelphia (A PopEntertainment.com Concert Review)

Updated: Jul 16

Sarah McLachlan & Feist – The Mann Center – Philadelphia, PA – June 26, 2024

Mother nature kept threatening to crash the party for Sarah McLachlan’s Philadelphia celebration of the 30th anniversary of her breakout album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. In fact, the threat of rainstorms totally changed the whole setup of the show, causing opening act Feist to cut her set short – she didn’t even get the chance to play her biggest hit, “1234” before suddenly signing off early. McLachlan to also had to monkey with her set list. The rest of the tour has been made up of ten career-spanning hits at the top of the show, then the entire album of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy before a two-song encore.

In an attempt to cut off the overcast clouds that were threatening to cut loose the whole night, McLachlan came on a half-hour earlier than expected and then cut down the hits section to just three songs before stumbling into Fumbling. Of course, those three songs were all McLachlan classics – the throbbing lust of “Sweet Surrender,” the gorgeously yearning “Building a Mystery” and then the sweet aching reminiscence of “I Will Remember You.”

Then, a mere four songs into the set, there came the mysterious organ-driven intro of her breakthrough single “Possession,” – the opening track on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – a throbbing alt-rock examination of a stalker trying to… well, possess… the singer. This was apparently based upon a real situation in the young singer’s life and the song still holds the creepy immediacy and beauty that it held when it was on the radio with great regularity in the mid-90s.

She quickly downshifted to the introspective beauty “Wait,” which looks at a shattered relationship which came close to succeeding, but now the lovers sift through the embers of their broken chances. The pace picks back up with the bittersweet dance beats of the ethereal music of "Plenty" which also explores a love gone wrong. (There were a lot of breakups and dysfunctional relationships in Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.)

She dedicated the gorgeous ballad (and the second single from the album) “Good Enough” to the women in her life, the friends and family who propped her up no matter what the world threw at her – including more of those non-functioning romantic pairings.

It’s not all sad, though, the sweet “Elsewhere” is about – as McLachlan said, “Taking the time and place to figure out who we are.” In fact, she said, “Every single one of us is beautiful” and suggested that the audience should not hide from their differences but embrace them – “let our freak flags fly.” She also suggested that it was a perfect anthem for the current pride month, and damned if she wasn’t right.

By the time she made it through towards the end of the album, from the throbbing pain of “Hold On” to an outlier on the album, the giddy-in-love song “Ice Cream,” the crowd was rapt in reminiscence of the raw power of the album. The album section closed out with the stunningly ethereal duo of confessional ballads “Fear” and album’s title track.

Since the storms held off through the show (although they came briefly and strongly soon afterwards) McLachlan was able to add two of the hits she skipped over earlier back into an extended encore.

However, she started the encore alone at the piano with a new song – “Gravity” – which will be on her upcoming album. It is a haunting piano ballad which fits in perfectly with her body of work, particularly the more contemplative songs of the encore. McLachlan explained that the song was about “the very tough challenges I faced with my first-born daughter” who had a lot of anxiety and anger until they went into family systems counselling.

The band returned to the stage for a delicate version of “Adia,” the first of the songs which was delayed from earlier in the show. Then she pulled out a more obscure song, the album track “Answer” from her Afterglow album, which fit into the gorgeous somber tone of the encore. She then bade Philadelphia farewell with the song that was arguably her biggest hit, the softly yearning “Angel,” assuring the crowd in the Mann that they may find some comfort here.

Thirty years on – actually longer, I was a huge fan of her first two albums Touch (1988) and Solace (1991), which were sadly not touched upon in this show – McLachlan’s voice is still that of an angel and her songs still feel immediate and current. To paraphrase one of the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy hits: she’s so much more than good enough.

Jay S. Jacobs