For Chantal Kreviazuk, Lilith Fair was anything but exasperational.

In fact, appearing on the same stage as Sarah McLachlan and Natalie Merchant was inspirational.

"I really had a great time and quite frankly, it was way better than I had ever hoped or dreamed," the Winnipeg-born singer says on the phone from her home in Toronto.

"Before playing it, I was a little bit ignorant about it and felt that it would be very estrogen-overwhelming."

Lilith moved the 23-year-old to write a new song, which, she says, will make it onto her second album.

And she hopes to have a new album in time for her birthday May 18.

"Two years of playing live and I hadn't really had anything yet that I was extremely excited about for the second record," she says of the song Until We Die.

"It's pretty wonderful, you know, there's another song for my next album."

Kreviazuk will be bringing that new song and many others with her when she plays Acadia University in Wolfville on Labour Day.

On Wednesday, she plays the McInnes Room at Dalhousie University in Halifax. And Saturday she lands at St. F.X.

Kreviazuk has enjoyed a long, successful run behind her debut album, Under These Rocks and Stones.

It's been two years of touring since she released the disc full of tuneful, personal and sometimes angry songs.

Up until Lilith, however, Kreviazuk says she couldn't think about doing a second album.

But now she's been energized by one song.

"My answering machine is full of songs I want to develop," she says.

Kreviazuk has been in the studio since Rocks and Stones, though, recording her remake of the John Denver classic Leaving on a Jet Plane for the hit Armageddon soundtrack.

"I think my favorite part was being able to perform the song and see the impact of performing it.

"It was fabulous, it was quite a good vibe."

Unfortunately, not good enough to make it into the meat of the movie.

Instead, star Ben Affleck sings it a little off-key.

Kreviazuk's version is near the end of the credits, when most people have already left.

She was feeling rather bummed about the whole thing until she went to see the movie with a couple of friends in Dallas, where she was shooting a video.

"Everyone was gone and we got up and danced to have fun with it and just revel," she says.

"These girls were cleaning the theatre and when they saw us get up, they thought we were leaving, and they said, 'Don't go, this is the best part of the movie.'"

Kreviazuk on tour doesn't give herself much of a chance to dance around the stage.

She doesn't want to.

She prefers being alone on stage with just a baby grand piano and a voice as cool as soft ice cream.

"It's just so me," she says.

"Something happens between myself and an audience that way. It's just so intimate and it's really wonderful."

And Kreviazuk isn't worried about how her Spartan stage show might sell with the university crowd.

"We'll see what happens. I won't get worked up about it."

That seems to be how she approaches most things, especially success.

"I really wouldn't trade my life for anybody else's on the planet. I feel just very blessed for where I'm at and where I get to go.

"It's a lot of work and it's healthy to work. I'm all for it."

By: Rick Conrad