Concert Review: Sarah McLachlan at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles

Sarah McLachlan is a '90s legend whose career has spanned decades. As a musician, she is known for her emotionally exposed, self-examined, and pensive songwriting, met by piano-led ballads and vocals that quietly command. Sarah's legacy far extends beyond her musical accomplishments, including fifteen Grammy nominations, three wins, global hits, and more than forty million records sold worldwide. She is equally celebrated for her stewardship, having co-founded the groundbreaking Lilith Fair, which helped reshape opportunities for women in music, and founded the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, which has provided free music education to children for twenty-four years and counting.

What a force. And for the first time, I would finally experience her live.

August 4, 2026, at the Greek Theatre. Sarah and her band were nestled within a remarkably dreamy stage canopied by fairy lights, as she guided the audience with grace, humility, and warmth through a set of new songs and beloved classics. What stood out to me the most was Sarah's generosity of vulnerability. Beyond the lyrics themselves, Sarah welcomed the audience into the internal world that gave rise to her songs, openly sharing the people, moments, and emotions that shaped them. Together, those stories transformed the night into an intimate container that felt entirely aligned with everything Sarah has become known for.

Back on tour with her tenth studio album, Better Broken (2025), Sarah returns with all-new material after eleven years. She described Better Broken as a byproduct of watching the world grow increasingly fractured, with many of the album's songs written during the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath. 

Only Human derived from a hope that people would surely emerge from quarantine more united, only to watch society become further disconnected and divided. Sarah went on to say how her music has rarely been overtly political, but after witnessing the overturn of Roe v. Wade and gay and trans rights being further under attack, she found herself writing her first formal protest song, One in a Long Line. Somewhere behind me, a man responded in genuine support: “Good for you, good for you!” Then there was If This Is the End…, inspired by the 1959 post-apocalyptic film On the Beach and its 'end of the world' vision. Sarah affectionately referred to this as her witchy, Irish, drunken pub song. For the recording, they quite literally invited friends to the studio, fed them tequila, and had them sing the backing vocals drunk.

Whereas other songs turned inward. 

The Last to Go looked at her mother through a new lens, with greater understanding for her mother's own humanness and struggles, while Elsewhere, an earlier song, explores the tension of an adult child trying to become their own person despite what parents, or anyone else, may want for them. With an audience filled by mostly Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials, these songs played back-to-back seemed to settle differently across the room. Sarah wasn't just singing about parents and children—she was singing to both. Later, during the encore, Sarah introduced Gravity as a love song to her daughter, who was in the audience. She spoke openly about a period when her daughter struggled deeply in college and how, as a mother, she didn't know how to reach her. They eventually went to counseling together, committed to “peeling the onion” of their relationship until they emerged closer than they had ever been.

And then, of course, there were the classics, such as Possession; Adia—which Sarah shared was inspired by being young and dumb, having fallen in love with her best friend's ex-boyfriend, adding that the two have since reconciled and their friendship blossomed; Building a Mystery, Sweet Surrender, Angel—performed live without the ASPCA ad of montaged emaciated dogs healed something in me after decades of that brutal (and important) commercial; and Fear, closing out the encore as Sarah's incredible vocal restraint sent a haunting ripple through the crowd.

Before the stage lights faded to black, the audience rose for yet another standing ovation and was met by Sarah's warmth one final time—a warmth that she radiated throughout the evening, as though she couldn't quite believe how connected people continued to be with her work. Amid the audience filtering out of the Greek, carrying the introspection the evening had left me with, I overheard someone state, "That was so magical," and if I had to describe the night in four words, I'd say they nailed it.