TORONTO - Melissa Etheridge wears more labels than the fuselage of an Indy car: Cancer survivor, Grammy winner, gay icon, environmental activist, guitar goddess, mother, lover ... there are more, but you get the picture.

The one that was most obvious in front of a sold-out crowd Saturday night at the Hummingbird Centre was communicator. Etheridge has a lot to say, through her songs and stories and jokes and big-sisterly life lessons. And you walk away from your time with her feeling a little wiser for it.

Saturday's concert marked Etheridge's first performance in Toronto since a Massey Hall gig in 2004. The day after that show, she discovered a lump in her breast and was in surgery a week later.

Etheridge in 2006 is healthy, happy, in a loving relationship with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels (pregnant with twins via an unrevealed sperm donor) and has more to say than ever before. Backed by her veteran three-piece band, she opened her two-and-a-half hour show by tearing into 2004's Come On Out Tonight, though it was clear much of her predominantly female audience was already out, thanks much.

Etheridge likes to talk, and she did a lot of it between her songs. She talked about environmental responsibility and how she converted her tour buses to run on biodiesel, leading into I Need To Wake Up, the song she wrote for Al Gore's global warming film An Inconvenient Truth.

She talked about her successful battle against cancer -- "that was the craziest journey of my life" -- and how it forced her to stop and be still, something she says we all need to experience. Preferably without the aid of life-threatening illness.

That segued into This Is Not Goodbye, written while she was in chemotherapy, and her anthem I Run For Life, embraced by breast cancer fighters and their loved ones. After that pairing, there were more than a few damp eyes in house.

She talked about Canada: "You got it right, that freedom thing. I could be married here, I appreciate that very much." She talked about how she feels the need to explain her song about the 9/11 heroes on United Flight 93 -- one of whom was a gay man -- when she plays it to Canuck audiences.

And she talked again and again about love, particularly the difference between good love and bad love. Grab the good stuff, she says, and hold on tight.

What makes Etheridge such an effective communicator is she doesn't preach. She simply distills her experiences into songs that strike a deep chord with her fans.

And chords were definitely being struck, especially when she turned those incredible pipes loose on rock-tinged hits like I Want To Come Over, Come To My Window and Tom Petty's Refugee, one of three songs she played by request from the fans at the front of the stage. Not something you see every day.

Etheridge closed the show with the triple-punch combo of Bring Me Some Water, I'm The Only One and a cover of Piece Of My Heart that ended in a scream that was surely channeling the spirit of Janis Joplin herself. And after a two-song encore, she shook hands with every one of the fans pressed up against the stage.

Two more labels to add to the list: Classy lady, and consummate performer.