11:15PM EDT

sarah can do no wrong tonight. it was another love-in. they stood, they cheered, they clapped, they sang, they danced, and they grooved. it was a fitting culmination to a fabulous day of music.

sarah was joined once again for "big yellow taxi" by the indigos, julia, meredith, and jewel. tonight they were a little more together and organized than they were last night!

the weather cooperated with us for a change today. the rain and winds didn't last long, though they were intense. people got wet and likely didn't dry out too much, but at least they didn't get soppier and soppier. everyone seemed pretty cheery as they left to head out into the night.

10:00PM EDT

you're gonna get tired of us raving about the indigo girls, we fear. we can say no wrong about them. tonight they were on again. it seemed like they were having even more fun than usual.

watching from side of stage was great tonight, cause we had a clear view of them and could see their unspoken communication and intensity all the better than our usual spot at the sound board. we could also enjoy the beautiful sunset that they were enjoying as their set progressed.

amy was especially intense tonight--she was practically eating the mic and tearing up her guitar strings. "shame on you" was a standout for her. they sang beautifully together without the band on "ghost", then were joined by their road manager, david, on "chickenman", right after both jewel and sarah accompanied them on "the water is wide", and finally, they blew down the house with jewel, sarah, meredith, and julia on "closer to fine". the crowd was dancing and singing along and then erupted in a standing ovation as soon as they finished.

9:00PM EDT

Jewel brought in the night. With an amazing Ontario sunset as a backdrop, Jewel sang like an angel. Starting by herself and then bringing out the band after a few songs. It seems Jewel's set list changes on a whim. Her band was glad that the yodelling had already happened. We hope the guy in the front row with the teddy bears was able to deliver his present.

6:00PM EDT

Meredith Brooks started up the excitment on the Mainstage. A blistering rock and roll performance. She sure can play guitar. The weather cleared up once again and the sun tried to even come out. The crowd was into it, Meredith was into it and her band was into it. The fun has just begun for this evening.

5:45PM EDT

English singer Julia Fordham had an ecstatic reaction from about one hundred people gathered in front of the small acoustic stage this afternoon. Julia played selections from her new record "East West". The crowd seemed familiar with her record or were at least new fans because of her powerfully played set. Julia's powerful voice and guitar playing meshed with bandmate David Clifton's atmospheric guitar to create delicious music reminiscent of fellow brits Everything But The Girl. Julia thanked the crowd for their support before playing the beautiful "Stay". After that song was over the crowd of mostly young women refused to let Julia leave. Julia apologized for not being able to play more songs because Meridith Brooks was due to start on the main stage.

Montrealer Lhasa De Sela played the oddly placed b stage this afternoon. The stage was placed in front of a walkway mid theatre. People walked by the stage on the way to their seats. Lhasa seemed unfazed by the crowd walking along. Despite the oncoming storm clouds Lhasa warmed the crowd with her songs sung in spanish. Lhasa was joined on stage by accordian player Didier Dumoutier, guitarist Yves Desrosiers and bass player Patricia Deslauriers. Lhasa's music draws from her mexican heritage in its dramatic and bittersweet sentiments. Among the songs Lhasa sang were one that was about the Mexican revolution and another that was a Christmas song. The crowd on the lawn listened , smiled and clapped along during her dramatically sung set. Lhasa will be playing tomorrow at Montreal's Lilith Fair.

5:30PM EDT

Right after Em Gryner played the Village stage at four o'clock, the best entertainment was watching people duck the pouring rain. Not that rain was a surprise, yesterday it debuted early (just in time for Em Gryner's set, actually) and then cleared up in the late afternoon. Today, the rain spared Em's set which was lucky because there was a crowd already seated and waiting for her to perform at five minutes after four. Em's gotten a lot of attention in Toronto over the past six months. Regular gigs at Toronto's C'est What? club and a lot of favorable press helped bring Em to the attention of several industry tip sheets. Em announced today that she is in fact signing an international record deal with Mercury Records in the U.S. For Em fans, one of the concessions the record company made was to not distribute Em's album in China and to also acknowledge the reason they're not distributing it is in protest to China's presence in Tibet. Cool, Em, say what you mean.

5:00PM EDT

guess what we just saw and it's headed our way? a huge bank of black clouds. ugh. what's left of blue sky over the eastern horizon is quickly disappearing and it feels like it's just gonna pour any minute now. at least lhasa has just finished her set.

this venue is beautiful, but it's really hard to get around if you're coming from backstage and trying to access either the acoustic or b-stages. there are barricades blocking halves of aisles, so there are a lot of bottlenecks to battle as we go against the flow of traffic. let's just say it's kinda frustrating!!

from our vantage point here on the bus, we are between a moat and the venue. we see all kinds of things including ducks, seagulls, unidentified objects, canoists, and paddleboaters. one pair of paddleboaters decided that they wanted to attend the show without paying. "oh, look, we can just slip in here over this low wall. let's try." 10 minutes later, one of them was being chased out by our head of security and trying without luck to get back on the paddleboat where his friend/mom was. we noticed that it's much easier to get off the boat than it is to get back on.

and here it is - just we are finishing this: lightning and thunder, high winds, and lots of rain. yuck. and we thought we were gonna have a nice day. sigh.

3:35PM EDT

Dayna Manning was to today's TBA. Which was nice for Dayna because she gets to play on the B-Stage later today as well. She said it was an opportunity to play some of her newer work. And the sun shone brightly for her set. The helicopters flying overhead didn't even phase her, it was kind of "Apocalypse Now"ish. Later at 5:10 p.m. she will be playing with a full band.

It seems a lot of people in the crowd are worried about sunburn today. Quiet a few people are wearing Biore nose strips to prevent burning. I guess it's another application for that product.

3:30PM EDT

we got to sleep in today. we didn't have bus call til noon, can you believe it?! most of us took full advantage of that and lazed around in bed til 10 or 11. what an indulgence.

the trip from the hotel downtown to the venue was hilarious. well, hilarious for us, but not for the bus drivers. traffic was terrible. there was a parade through part of downtown, so we had to circle around that for 10 min. or so. and then we hit a wall of traffic on lakeshore. no go. so we circled around again for 10 min. or so. we passed the barbi store about 3 times! finally we headed straight along king st. for many miles and then headed south to lakeshore and looped back to the venue. an hour after we left, we completed our journey which should've taken us 20 min. tops on a normal day.

so our day started late and now it feels very strange and sorta like we've missed a bunch of stuff. we missed sarah at her instore at hmv. she said it went really well and that the crowd was "so nice." she was very happy and relaxed upon her return, so that's a sure sign that it was great.

the weather's turned out to be a whole lot better than yesterday (so far, but there is rain in the forecast for later), so we're gonna be able to take a whole lot more photos and video. if the shows were anything like yesterday, we're in for another awesome show.