This is a timeline of my Sarah McLachlan music experiences, from the first moment I heard Sarah's Fumbling Towards Ecstacy song back in 1993 to the most recent concert I've visited. There is a touch if Internet history within the timeline as well, for those who want to know what the Internet was like way back then. :o)

1991: I was 15 years old. I had never heard of Sarah, not as much as a peep out of her. My family bought our first computer. We bought one of those huge desktops with the tiny monitor and a printer that used rolled paper and made horrible loud noises when it printed. This was also the year I was introduced to the email/bulletin board program called "Yak". I believe this was one of the first public email programs, before Prodigy and AOL were available. The program allowed a person to find a pen pal in another part of US and send emails back and forth. It was great while it lasted, but my father got rid of it when he found out my little sister was pen pals with a gentleman that was a few years her senior. This is before the Internet became mainstream, and there was no www.sarahmclachlan.com or a discussion group anywhere.

1993: I was 17 years old. I spent most of my free time with my boyfriend and our group of friends listening to his hard rock with those long haired men screaming their lungs out and those alternative bands that were coming out of the woodwork. (Not that I didn't like that at the time, but I knew deep down that something was missing. Hmmm. I wonder what it was. ;o)) One night in 1993, my best friend, my boyfriend, and I were scrunched in the back seat of his friend John's Camaro listening to their lovely choices in music. Then the strangest thing happened during one short, small moment in that crowded camaro. An amazing, powerful voice floated into my eardums from the rear speakers. The voice was so enchanting and soothing, and the music was intense. I asked, "Who is this singing?" The driver of the Camaro, who I thought had no taste in music, said, "Sarah McLachlan. Ever heard of her?" No, I hadn't, but I knew that as soon as I was out of that car, my next mission was to get that Sarah McLachlan CD.

In 1993, I attended my first Sarah McLachlan concert with my friends Ricky and Liza. It was held in the Music Hall in Dallas. Paula Cole opened up for Sarah. Paula had really short hair then and not many people knew who she was. The concert wasn't even sold out. There were empty seats all around us at the top. That was an amazing concert, but I nearly had a heart attack when Paula Cole walked onto the stage for the opening act. From the balcony seat that I was sitting in, it looked like Sarah was walking on stage, and I thought that she had chopped her hair off. I gasped alound and pointed out the short hair on Sarah's head. My friends were shocked at first, until she started talking and we realized it was Paula Cole, not Sarah. :o) (I wonder if that was a foreshadow of the 1997 haircut? heheh)

1994: My family invested in the first Prodigy when it was $6 an hour to use the online services. (It got quite expensive at times. There was none of that unlimited access that there is now.) When I logged on and tried to find information on Sarah, there was nothing, not even one site. I used Yahoo to help with my search. The famous directory was new and small then. They didn't even have one listing under Sarah McLachlan. I also tried to type www.sarahmclachlan.com in the old Prodigy browser window and nothing was there. This was in the ancient days of the Internet when just a handful of web sites existed along with a few Prodigy chat rooms where everyone knew everyone else's business. Back then, if you typed, "Hey, do you like Sarah McLachlan's music?" the chatters responded, "Who's she?" or "Never heard of her." I had that same problem with radio stations too. I used to call the radio station and ask them to play Fumbling. They would reaply with "Sarah Who?" I worked in the computer/electronics department of Sears around this time as well. One of the albums I used to demo the Dolby Surround Sound Systems was Sarah's FTE album because it sounded like a live concert when it was played on the Dolby system. Some people would walk by and ask who was singing. A few of my customers would ask me to write her name and the album down so they could purchase it - along with the new stereo that they usually bought from me after hearing her voice. (Sarah's voice has a way of making stereos sound their best! ;o))

The Internet was growing at a rapid pace by the time I was 18, although Prodigy was still sucking us dry of our money at $6/hour for Internet access. The official Sarah McLachlan site had not been born yet, but there was finally a site listed in Yahoo under her name. I still remember whose site it was. It may be a site that you frequent often because it has been listed in Yahoo since 1994. Have you ever heard of Christian's Sarah McLachlan Site? His site was one of the first Sarah McLachlan sites on the Internet.

In June of 1994, I bought tickets for the August concert at the Starplex in Dallas. Unfortunately, I was never able to experience sitting in those great seats because I never made it to the concert.

It was a gray, rainy day, but the anticipation of the concert didn't allow us to mope about the weather. We were very excited about seeing Sarah in concert again. Sarah's Fumbling album was spinning in my Ford Probe's cd player, enchanting my friends and I with Sarah's soaring vocals. We had no idea that within the next few minutes, a horrible accident would ruin our evening. A blue sports car was speeding at approximately 90 miles per hour in the fast lane of the highway. I was driving at the speed limit in the next lane. I remember saying to myself, that woman is crazy to be driving so fast in this rain. Then, as if on cue with my thoughts, the nightmare started to unfold. The blue car lost control, tilted onto two wheels, bounced off of the median of the highway and slammed into my car. Sarah's voice stopped on impact. The metal of the car crunched and roared, and my door caved in. My body was thrust to the right and my neck jolted from the force. I heard my seat belt break. Liza yelled out a few choice words while we were spinning across the four lanes of highway traffic. Then my Probe landed in a ditch with the car that hit us. The engine made a hissing sound that faded after a few seconds, and then all was silent.

It didn't seem real. It felt like a nightmare that I would wake up from, but it was not a nightmare. The reality settled in when I heard the sirens of the fire trucks and ambulances, instead of the beautiful sounds of Sarah's music.

I ended up with a bumped nogin, a broken seat belt, whiplash, and a couple of bruises on my arm where the door caved in. My friends also had minor injuries, but other than that, we were ok. We were very disappointed out missing the concert, but after that ordeal, we were just happy to be alive.

1995 - 1997: Sarah started to grow in popularity. I think this is when the official Sarah McLachlan site was launched. There were a few more fan sites popping up on Yahoo as well. Between, 1995 and 1997, Sarah worked on her Surfacing album. (Prodigy started offering unlimited access for $19.99. I think they did this to compete with AOL that was offering unlimited access for $20/month as well.)

1997: Lilith Fair is started, and Surfacing is released. Sarah's fame is on the rise. I moved from Dallas to New York in 1996, so I went to her Surfacing concert and all three Lilith's in New York and Toronto between 1997 and 1999. At the end of 1996, I found myself very interested in Internet development, so I bought a book on HTML, taught myself HTML, and built a Sarah McLachlan Site that I am glad none of you remember. (Well, I hope you don't! hehe) The rest is history. I kept re-designing, enhancing, and learning new things in an attempt to make it more user-friendly and still look nice. Then I became a professional web designer and developer, and I now own and run a few other sites of other interests and topics.

1999 - Current: A lot of you are probably wondering why I would take the time and energy to maintain a site for Sarah McLachlan, especially when Lilith Fair has already ended and Sarah is going to be leading a somewhat simple life for the next few years. Well, to answer your question, I will say this: It isn't Sarah that the site is for. (After all, Sarah knows all about herself already. Why would she need to visit a site to learn about herself? heheh) It is for you, the fans of Sarah. That is why I chose http://www.sarahfan.com for the domain. I love interacting with other Sarah fans.

I hope you enjoyed the site! Take care Sarah fans and keep in touch!