Sarah McLachlan concert

Two months ago, I opened my email to see Sarah McLachlan tickets were going on sale soon for a Boston concert.  My husband LOVES Sarah (as do I) and the concert date was 3 days before his birthday.  Sounded like an idea to me!

The on-sale date came, I parked at my computer at 9:45 am, opened TicketMaster.com, and refreshed till they were available to buy. 10 am on the dot, I was (painstakingly) entering a (STUPID) Captcha phrase and looking at best-available tickets.  Balcony.  I get online the SECOND they go on sale, and you give me balcony???  Okay, this has happened before, better tickets are tied up by people looking and not buying.  I search again.  Mezzanine.  Okay, a little better, let's press our luck.  Orchestra row W.  Ugh.  Orchestra is nice, but you can't see anything from row W.  I tried AGAIN.  Mezzanine again.  Okay fine, we'll be higher up and can see better.  I bought them.

For some reason, I decided to keep looking after I bought them.  Balcony, mezzanine, mezzanine...what's this?  Dress circle (in front of the mezzanine) row AA???  Front row of the front of the high seats???  WTF?  I was so mad.  I had already bought tickets.  But as my 2-minute timer ticked down, I thought, well I can always re-sell the first pair on eBay.  I've sold tickets before, they usually at least cover the face value.  So I bought the second pair of MUCH better seats.

Two weeks before the concert (which was still a secret from Simon as it was his birthday present), I put the first pair of tickets up on eBay.  I started them at face value.  I had checked TicketMaster and all ticket pairs were sold out, only singles were left, so it was a safe bet.  As the week goes by, I see more and more bids.  Looking good!  Finally, in the last few minutes, bidding gets furious.  When all was said and done, they sold for almost double what I paid.  Meaning the entire concert was costing me maybe $20.  WIN!  I laughed and laughed.  Sweet irony.  TAKE THAT TICKETMASTER.  Ahem.  Sorry.

SO.  The day of the concert (yesterday) comes.  I took Simon out to dinner at Not Your Average Joe's to use his free birthday meal coupon (love that!).  He tried to guess where we were going after and had no clue.  I finally told him it was a concert, but not who.  Then we drove into Boston (well, he drove, because it's less stressful for both of us that way) and parked under the Common.  We walked over to the Opera House, and as we approached I pointed to the Sarah McLachlan sign.  He finally got it and was VERY surprised.  I was psyched, he's hard to fool!

We were pretty early as I thought it was at 7 pm (7:30, oops) so as we sat and waited we took some pictures of the gorgeous architecture and artwork:

And us!

Then, the concert!  Sarah McLachlan is amazing.  Instead of having an opening act, she's up there with two other female singers (who have their own CDs) and various band members right from the beginning.  They sing and play back-up for her, and every so often THEY perform and SHE sings and plays back-up for them!  She is incredibly humble.

For a woman in her 40s, and a mom of two, she is in FANTASTIC shape.  She wore a glittering silver tank top (which showed off her chiseled arms) over tight jeans tucked into black chunky-heeled boots.  The other singers were Melissa McClelland and Butterfly Boucher.  Melissa wore a black, cotton, handkerchief-hemmed tank dress, black tights, and shiny red Mary Jane pumps.  Hers was my favorite outfit up there.  Butterfly, with her boyishly pixie haircut, rocked a simple black tee, skinny jeans, and boots.  There were also two male guitarists (one of them Melissa's husband), a male pianist, and a male drummer.

Everyone up there exuded talent and passion.  They had FUN.  They LOVED what they were doing.  I don't know all of Sarah's songs, but she sang a lot of her classics, like I Will Remember You, Sweet Surrender, Angel, etc.  She played piano or guitar while singing most of them.  When not playing, she was dancing around happily.  She was just a joy to watch.

She did some Q & A sessions, and three encore songs.  She connects with the audience and is just so happy to be there for us.  It truly was a show I'll never forget.  And Simon loved his birthday present!