Circa 1997
Sarah McLachlan
With Barenaked Ladies
- Date
- Circa 1997
- Dating
- Year is John's estimate; no source records the night
- Venue
- RIMAC Arena, UCSD Campus
- City
- La Jolla, CA
Barenaked Ladies opened. Nothing dates this show: setlist.fm has neither act at RIMAC, and UCSD's own history of the arena lists both Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies among its performers without giving a year. The two shared bills in late 1997 — setlist.fm places them together in Orlando that December — which is what puts John's estimate in that year. RIMAC opened in 1995 and took over from the UCSD Gym as the campus's big-show room.
The moment
Circa 1997 puts this at the hinge of Sarah McLachlan's career: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy had made her adult-alternative's most trusted voice, Surfacing and 'Building a Mystery' were about to make her enormous, and Lilith Fair — her festival, launched that summer — was about to make her an institution. Barenaked Ladies shared the bill, a year from 'One Week' and their own American explosion: two Canadian acts in a college arena, both twelve months from everywhere.
From the time
- Surfacing
“The 1997 album that, with Lilith Fair, made McLachlan the defining voice of the moment.”
The stub
No physical stub on file — this show was reconstructed from the
confirmation email. Drop a photo in public/stubs/ and add
"stubImage" to this show's record to attach one.