Mirrorball, Mirrorball On The Wall
Will it be "Auld Lang Syne?" Or Seals & Crofts' "We May
Never Pass This Way Again?" Or will it simply be "Thank
you and good night." Nobody knows yet how Sarah
McLachlan and the Lilith Fair crew will bring their
enormously successful traveling festival to a close when it
rolls into Edmonton at the end of August, but there's no
question it's been a job well done. During each of its two
previous years, Lilith Fair 霠a celebration of women in
music, arts, and literature 霠has been neck-and-neck with
the heavy metal OZZfest as the leading tour of the summer,
and combined they've managed to literally blow competitors
such as Lollapalooza and the H.O.R.D.E. tour off the road,
at least temporarily. This year's Lilith will play 40 dates
during the next two months, headlined, as usual, by
McLachlan, and also featuring an array of pop, hip-hop and
country performers such as Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks,
Queen Latifah, Sixpence None the Richer,
the Pretenders, and Luscious Jackson. All
good things must come to an end, though,
and McLachlan decided some time ago that
Lilith would have a three-year life span (four if
you count a handful of prototype dates during
the summer of 1996) before she'd bring the
curtain down. It will also mark the end of an
era for McLachlan herself, a decade of
concentrated work that raised the Nova
Scotia native from the Canadian folk circuit to
a vaunted position at the top of the pop world,
a respected artist who's shown compelling
growth on each of her five releases 霠plus
the new Mirrorball live album 霠and has the rare
combination of regard from peers, fans and critics. But all of
them will have to wait awhile to hear from her again; after
Lilith '99 wraps; McLachlan and her husband, drummer Ash
Sood, are planning some well-deserved time off to relax,
travel and start a family. But first, a few words before she
goes
So what are you expecting for Lilith Fair this year?
Hopefully more of the same; really great music, great vibes, great fun.
As far as our ideals for the whole thing, it's remained pretty much the
same right from the start 霠just trying to put together a great musical
show. And I think we've got a great mix of artists this year, too.
Country seems to be the primary addition to this year's mix.
Yeah, well, the Dixie Chicks. I hadn't heard of them last year, I'm
embarrassed to say (laughs). Obviously we're trying to get as many
different kinds of artists as possible, not only on the main stage but
on the B stage and C stage as well, and trying to get a diverse range
of music that's popular and that people don't know so much about,
either. So as far as the selection process, it's a matter of us
educating ourselves and people coming to us and saying "Hey, we
really want to be a part of this."
Any regrets about this being your final year?
Nope, not in the least. Three years seems just perfect to us. We had
planned it to be the last year, and it just feels like it's a good thing for
it to be the last year. It's a great show, a great lineup, but it's a huge
amount of work, and we want to end things on a high note in every
way possible. And I think we all believe three years makes the most
sense.
What kind of impact has the past three years had on you,
personally and creatively?
I think for myself as an artist, it's helped me gain
an awful lot of confidence in what I do. And just
having a constant reaffirmation from other artists
that they're really proud of you and proud of being a
part of this thing you've helped to put together, that
really makes me feel good about myself. So it's
helped me as a human being. And as an artist, to
be able to connect with my peers, to share
different things about my life and hear about things
in their lives, what they've had to go through,
different stories and stuff, it's all great to be able to
connect with these people and find out what's
going on in their weird worlds. It's bizarre, the
music industry, and being a woman in it and just
being a musician. it's very insular a lot. It's nice to
be surrounded by your peers once in awhile.
One of Lilith's stated goals was to generate some respect for
women as a commercial force in the marketplace. Do you feel
that's been achieved, too?
For me that was never really an issue, but there were so many people
and so many promoters saying this couldn't work. And I was like,
"Well, why the hell not?" How can it not work when you have a bunch
of amazingly talented performers who already in their own careers
have done very, very well? You put them all together, and how can it
not be a success?
Do you have particular favorite memories from the tour?
Oh, so many. Some of the most important ones were playing, getting
to play with some of the most amazing people 霠with Bonnie Raitt,
with Emmylou Harris, with Sinead O'Connor, with Queen Latifah, just
to be able to go into somebody else's musical style and be a part of
that. It's a huge thrill as a musician. And also, for me, I was the lucky
person who got to give the check to charity. Every day we do a local
charity donation, to a woman's shelter, a dollar for every ticket sold,
and that would be upwards of $25-$30,000 some days.
Will there ever be another Lilith Fair?
I don't think we want to close any doors on that. We might revisit it in
five or 10 years. At this point we don't know. We haven't looked that
far ahead.
With the last Lilith and the live album, Mirrorball, that surveys
your career, do you feel like you're reaching the end of a
particular period or cycle?
I don't really think about it that way. Yeah, sure, I've been doing this
10-plus years now. To put out Mirrorball now, I feel like it's
documenting the place I'm at as a performer and how far I've come as
a musician and as a performer. And it is something to give to the fans
during the down time, because I'm not going to be putting out a new
studio record for a couple of years. So I'm gonna put this out and go
away for a year or two, and it'll be okay, I hope.
What kind of perspective did you get on your music going
through all the tapes for Mirrorball?
It was interesting to see what translated really well live and what didn't
translate so well. I thought most of them did, but there were just some
songs that felt like I was losing passion for singing them. When I
heard them played back, I could hear it, those didn't end up on the
record. The songs that were fresh and meant something to me and I
felt we gave the best performances for were the ones that we went
with.
Have the songs changed much for you over the
years you've been doing them?
Oh, yeah. As far as arrangements, from Fumbling
Towards Ecstasy on we were out on the road for
almost two and a half years. So with every tour we'd
rearrange the songs and play them; I'd play piano
one time and guitar the next time, just to keep it
interesting as musicians. As far as meaning, there
was a point in my life, definitely, when I was singing
some of these bitter love songs that I'd written and
they'd mean more to me at that moment than three
years ago when I wrote them, because I was going
through something in my life where all of a sudden
they mirrored that life way more than the other
times.
Was there a song or two that you would have liked to put on
Mirrorball that didn't make the cut?
No. There wasn't one. It was just these 14 songs that made perfect
sense. There was not a 15th I was trying to get on. It's not only how
many songs but how they're sequenced, how they fit together. The 14
songs on there, I felt like they fit really well. They flowed, and if we put
something else in there, it might not have worked as well.
Any significance to the title?
Nope (laughs). I'm afraid there's no deep meaning behind it. I'm sure
people will go into all sorts of deep, psychological things 霠the
reflection of self and yada yada. I love mirrorballs; when we were
mixing in Miami, in the studio there was mirrorballs everywhere, and
they were playing constantly. I just like them; I love singing when
there's a mirrorball going.
So what are you going to do with your time off?
I'm going to continue to write. I'm gonna just float, do some traveling
for pleasure for the first time in my life and just not make any real
plans. The way the business works, you have your days planned out
six months in advance; I look forward to the opportunity of not doing
that for awhile. And we want to have kids, that's for sure; it's just a
question of when. It's an amazing luxury to say I'm 31 years old and
I'm gonna take a year off. That's pretty amazing.
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