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Sarah McLachlan returns to the road this summer with the Better Broken Tour, and the July 14 date at Artpark — with Allison Russell opening — presents one of the more thoughtfully assembled evenings on the western New York summer calendar.
About the Show
There are certain voices that exist outside of trend cycles, that were fully formed the first time you heard them and have only deepened with the passage of years. Sarah McLachlan’s voice is one of those. From “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” through “Surfacing” — the album that produced “Building a Mystery,” “Adia,” and “Angel,” and that sat on the Billboard 200 for the better part of two years — through her later work and her organizing of Lilith Fair, McLachlan has occupied a particular place in popular music as someone whose artistry commands a respect that casual commercial success cannot fully explain.
The Better Broken Tour arrives at a moment when McLachlan has been releasing new material alongside legacy catalog material that audiences have been carrying with them for three decades. The Artpark setting suits the scope of what she does — her songs are large in the emotional sense without requiring a stadium to fully realize them, and the outdoor amphitheater environment at roughly 10,000 capacity puts the audience close enough to the performance to feel its grain.
Allison Russell opening this show is a curatorial choice that rewards attention. Russell is one of the most celebrated artists working in the boundary space between folk, soul, and Americana, and her presence on this bill signals something about what the evening is meant to be — not a greatest-hits exercise but a genuine musical experience from first note to last.
Venue Info
Artpark in Lewiston is situated above the Niagara Gorge with an outdoor amphitheater that seats and holds around 10,000 in a setting that is, by any measure, extraordinary. Summer evenings here carry a quality that indoor venues cannot approximate — the light, the air, the particular silence between songs. It is a venue that complements this kind of music rather than simply containing it. Details at Artpark. Regional calendar at Western NY.
Tickets & Pricing
Tickets range from $54 to $258. The upper range reflects premium reserved seating near the stage; mid-range sections and lawn options offer strong value for a performance of this caliber. Given McLachlan’s devoted and geographically mobile fan base, the better sections will move. Tickets at Artpark.