Published on Jun 23, 1999
You’ve got to hand it to Sarah McLachlan: she knows how to keep
herself in the media eye in the good sense.
Not only is she kicking off the third (and supposedly final)
installment of the Lilith Fair concert series, but she also has one
cut on each of the recently released compilations from the tour.
Now, on top of all that, McLachlan has released her first
full-length live disc,
Mirrorball, to add to her already-growing legend as an
alterna-pop superstar. (McLachlan’s previous live effort,
Sarah McLachlan Live, was a limited-edition disc that is no
longer available. Thanks to Armand at Nettwerk for the
information.)
You also have to say this much for McLachlan: she knows how to
keep the material interesting and lively, even if it’s a song
you’ve heard a hundred times before.
Mirrorball is an excellent live disc that drarfs the few
cuts she put onto the Lilith Fair discs, and is one of the better
live albums I’ve heard in a while.
Note that I’m saying this about a disc that commits what I call
the cardinal sin of live albums: fading in and out of tracks. When
I normally listen to a live album, I expect to feel like I’m
actually at the show, listening to the natural flow of the tracks
and taking in the energy of the moment. But somehow, Mirrorball
feels right being broken up like this. Don’t ask me to explain why,
’cause I can’t.
Oh, sure, you could look at this disc as a greatest hits
collection (odd for someone who only has only three full-length
albums on the market), but Mirrorball is much more. It’s capturing
the true soul of McLachlan on stage, even to the point of uttring
words that she couldn’t say on the radio as on “Building A
Mystery”. Such utterances from McLachlan might turn some listeners’
heads for a second, only because it catches them off-guard. But
frankly, the instance in “Building A Mystery” seems like the
adjective in question was always there.
“I Will Remember You,” the song presently getting the airplay,
is a decent enough take on a song that I found to be a little too
sleepy when its studio counterpart came out. But McLachlan knows
how to inject a littl extra life into these performances, making
each track just different enough from the studio versions, but not
radically different. Tracks like “Possession” benefit from this
attack.
Some songs might not be familiar to the fans of McLachlan who
know only her work on the radio, so
Mirrorball serves as a nice introduction to tracks like “The
Path Of Thorns (Terms)”, “Do What You Have To Do” and “Fear”. If I
had one complaint about
Mirrorball, it’s that I kind of wish the key that “Angel” is
sung in had been dropped to the level it was at in the studio. Even
a note or two higher, it doesn’t sound quite right – and this is a
song that I absolutely love.
The disc comes with an enhanced CD portion, but all I found the
time to explore was the catalog, allowing you to buy other CDs and
merchandise from McLachlan and Lilith Fair. I guess this is the
modern equivalent of the merchandising insert one used to find in
albums and tapes.
Mirrorball is a disc that captures the essence of
McLachlan’s many facets, and puts them into a package that everyone
can enjoy from the moment the shrink wrap is ripped off. Don’t be
surprised if you have a difficult time getting this one out of the
CD changer all summer long.