OTTAWA - When Melissa Etheridge tells people to find some good love, they listen.

After all, this is a singer-songwriter who, over a 20-year career, has written brutally honest tunes, delivered in a plaintive, heartaching wail, about longing — misplaced, dysfunctional and, now, blessedly, otherwise — that has clearly sustained her fans in a way that has to be seen to be believed. If there was an overriding emotion during her more than two-hour show in front of about 2,000 fans at the National Arts Centre last night, a triumphant return to the region where she first learned she had breast cancer in 2004, it might be summed up as “hear that sister.”

True-speaking beacon

Etheridge is a talented, true-speaking beacon of so much and for so many including, “those,” she said, with a smile, introducing her growing-up-gay anthem Silent Legacy, “of my persuasion.”

Etheridge opened with the title track from her 2004 release Lucky, stopping later in the show to sing the surging This Is Not Goodbye and I Run for Life, a new tune on 2006’s Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled, which she penned for breast cancer fundraiser Race for the Cure.

And when Etheridge shouted out to all the survivors in the crowd, she’d just finished telling them she was actually in Gatineau, having finished the first of a two-night gig at the Lac Leamy Casino in 2004, when she first felt a lump in her breast.

“You know life does not give you anything you cannot handle,” she said.

“This was an incredible opportunity for me, to clear off my life. Let me tell you, cancer is a big eraser. Cancer is a gift.”

Then there are all the rest Etheridge lifts up, those still looking for love, sustained by someone who, after so much searching, seems finally to have got it right.

Liked mullet

She meandered through her extensive catalogue over the rest of the evening, pausing to reminisce over how much she liked wearing a mullet, back when her 1988 self-titled debut was released, touch on global warming to introduce I Want to Wake Up, a tune she wrote for Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and gave a nod to Canada for legalizing gay marriage.

Etheridge earns respect on several other counts. Not many acts these days enjoy performing so much they lay down well over two hours to earn their ticket price. Most stick to a set list that varies little from city to city. Then there are those astonishing pipes, evidenced on her more well-loved anthems like Come To My Window.

Etheridge preached the gospel of love throughout the night, urging the crowd to seek out what they need and not settle until they do.

“I hope you don’t have to learn the lessons in such a fierce way as I did,” she said.