McLachlan solves the 'Mystery'

REVIEW
	Sarah McLachlan April 7, 199 MSU Auditorium

Somebody had better tell agents Mulder and Scully about Sarah McLachlan before she strikes again. The bodies of enraptured fans are piling up in tour cities across the nation and there doesn't look to be much sign of a change. Simply put: The woman is hypnotizing America.

From the first moment McLachlan took the stage of MSU Auditorium on Tuesday night, dressed in a clingy purple number with shimmering beads and spaghetti straps, her intent to mystify fans was perfectly clear.

As she sang in the evening's first song, McLachlan was "Building A Mystery" and her fans could not help but surrender their wild applause.

With the dizzying display of flashy, multi-colored stage-lights, the queen of the Lilith Fair continued with "Plenty," anesthetizing the audience from any outward pain as they looked into her eyes. She tore through "Hold On" quickly, with the air around her retaining the dusty memories of her ethereal high notes, and then launched into a seductive "Good Enough" with the grace of a true diva. With her fingers and sweet soprano voice undulating up and down, McLachlan conducted the audience into an awe-struck stupor. And then, at the quietest moment, a fan yelled out "You're sexy, Sarah!"

DANA LINNANE/Daily Sarah McLachlan enchanted fans at the MSU Auditorium on Tuesday.

OK, so maybe "The X-Files" would find Ms. McLachlan's power more temporal than supernatural, but there is definitely something or other worldly in the effect she has on her fans. With each dramatic fade to black after a song, the audience cheered anew like giddy schoolgirls at the end of a talent show (all right, so they mostly were giddy schoolgirls). Even as she blathered on about staying near the prefab homes across town and being sad to have missed the splendor of collegiate Lansing, the sold-out house reacted as if she were giving a Nobel acceptance speech. No matter about microphone squawks or an over-amped bass guitar, to the Sarah-struck legions, she could do no wrong.

Not that any intensity was lacking Tuesday night - her performance was larger than life from start to finish. Whether she was pounding the keys of her baby grand piano on "I Will Remember You," keeping time on her acoustic as drummer/husband Ashwin Sood's wailed on the percussion in "Wait," or stepping back from the microphone while one of the two lead guitarists burst forward for a power solo, McLachlan was in prime form.

The show moved along in themed mini-sets of songs from all four albums, dealing with songs on unrequited love, fantasies and obsession. Instead of the more subdued sound on her recordings, in concert, the synthesizer, B-3 organ and electric guitars were pumped up so high that the walls shook. With the diverse instrumentation, McLachlan seemed to be more funky than folkie.

Though some have called her Sarah McDonald's, what with her own line of Lilith Fair sunglasses and jewelry hawked in the lobby before the show, the crowd treated her more like a gourmet treat, asking for two encore helpings. But even if she has sold-out, people are still buying into the mystery. And they like it that way.

04-10-98