Concert Reviews

The Lilith Fair founder made it to Boston’s Orpheum Theatre Thursday after laryngitis scuttled her 2024 shows.

Sarah McLachlan at Orpheum Theatre, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025.

The first thing there was to notice about Sarah McLachlan as she took the Orpheum stage on Thursday was her voice. Not that it was lithe and swooping and clear and sympathetic, seemingly undiminished even a little from the singer/songwriter’s heyday three decades ago — all true things — but the fact that she had one at all.

Last October, McLachlan was touring behind the 30th anniversary of her breakthrough album “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy,” with stops scheduled in Boston and elsewhere around New England, when an ill-fated case of laryngitis forced her to cancel a whole bunch of shows so she could go on vocal rest for several months. A little over a year later, she finally made it back to Boston, telling the crowd, “I’m so happy to be here to play for you, to sing for you. You don’t know how happy.”

But it wasn’t, strictly speaking, to do the show she’d pulled the plug on last fall. McLachlan released her latest album “Better Broken” in September, which meant that it was time to stop celebrating the old record and start celebrating the new one. Sort of, anyway. Of the 20 songs she performed, six of them — nearly a third — came from the album that helped make her name.

Seven of them came from “Better Broken,” however, and beating-heart songs like the title track and “Gravity” were indistinguishable from the work that turned her into a star, save for the decades of familiarity behind them. “Only Human” offered a soft acceptance, while McLachlan characterized “Reminds Me” as her “cowboy love song,” borrowing the swaying, dusky atmosphere of a late-night honky-tonk ballad but wrapping it in a slightly more genteel package.

That material mixed well with her better-known work. She opened and closed with a run of songs performed alone at her piano, and while she might have raised some eyebrows by introducing “Possession” as one of her favorite love songs, her obsession anthem benefited from a slightly slower and freer approach to tempo, giving it a warmth that defied the windswept chilliness of the record.

Her band entered midway through “I Will Remember You,” and they helped propel the cyclical momentum of “Building A Mystery,” the moody, warm thrum of “Wait,” and the liquid suppleness of “The Last To Go.” And they added some bite to “Sweet Surrender,” though the most striking moment was when the instruments dropped out before the final chorus, leaving just McLachlan’s vocals and the audience singing along with her.

It was a reminder that McLachlan’s ascension — via both her albums and her spearheading the woman-centric Lilith Fair festival that stormed across the continent from 1997-1999 — means that she’s never singing alone, even if she’s the only one doing it out loud. The crowd jumped onto “Ice Cream” right from the start, or even earlier, given how many people knew exactly what was coming when the singer declared, “I think it may be time for a happier song.” Guitarist Melissa McClelland stepped forward to take verses of “Reminds Me” and “Angel.” And the crowd practically burst into flames when McLachlan brought out her Lilith Fair compatriot (and Massachusetts native) Paula Cole, whose alto added drama to “Elsewhere.”

McLachlan set up the new “One In A Long Line” by saying, “I’ve never been political in my music, but I was really pissed off.” But of course, the excellent recent documentary “Lilith Fair: Building A Mystery” reinforced just how much politics were fundamentally baked into the festival’s creation and ongoing transformation, as does as her longtime practice of donating a portion of her ticket sales to local charities. And while “If This Is The End…” didn’t call out any specific people, parties or beliefs, just the simple fact of writing a song about the end of the world in the current environment is a statement and an act.

The same could be said for her comment that music is something that reminds us of our shared humanity, regardless of politics, religion and the like. In that moment, and others, McLachlan was making a quietly defiant stand for what she saw as not just important, but vital to our survival as a species in the face of the chaotic swirl we face constantly.

And that empathy ran through her songs, whether low-key groovy like the whirling wash of “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” or spare and sad like the closing “Angel.” On that one, McLachlan sat alone at her piano and sang out with elongated vocals that were enough on their own, but gained strength with vocal assistance from McClelland and guitarist Luke Doucet. They made it through together.

Setlist for Sarah McLachlan at Orpheum Theatre, Nov. 20, 2025

• Better Broken
• Possession
• Only Human
• I Will Remember You
• Adia
• Building A Mystery
• Reminds Me
• Wait
• World On Fire
• One In A Long Line
• Sweet Surrender
• The Last To Go
• Answer
• Elsewhere (with Paula Cole)
• Ice Cream
• If This Is The End…
• Fear
• Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

ENCORE:

• Gravity
• Angel

Marc Hirsh can be reached at [email protected] or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social.

Marc Hirsh

Music Critic

Marc Hirsh is a music critic who covers a wide variety of genres, including pop, rock, hip-hop, country and jazz.

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