All mysteries aside, you could say that, this summer, together, Sarah McLachlan and Allison Russell are building a sister-y road show. McLachlan is touring behind her 2025 “Better Broken” album, as a followup to her successful “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” 30th Anniversary Tour, with plenty of the commemorative aspects of that show staying intact alongside her new material. This time around, she has a particularly potent opener in the form of the acclaimed Allison Russell, who has become more widely known over the past couple of years through opening for Hozier and appearing in a lead role on Broadway in “Hadestown.” Between them, there’ll be a lot of joint Canadian pride but, more significantly, a shared sense of music as a healing force, where, in amphitheaters from coast to coast, audiences can “forget madness,” as McLachlan promises, and remember the joy of melting into connection.
Variety spoke with the two singer-songwriters on a Zoom as they geared up for their mutual outing — McLachlan at home in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Russell in New York, where she was taking a momentary retreat away from her Nashville home to finish up work on a memoir. (Scroll down for a full itinerary of their dates together, which just began and continue through Aug. 9.)
