On May 26, 1990, some friends and I went to see Sinead O’Connor at the City Coliseum in Austin, Texas. We’d been looking forward to it for ages. At the time–well, okay, even still today–I loved music that was both angry and lyrical, and the two acts that best embodied that sound were from Ireland: U2 when I was in high school, and Sinead when I was in college.

We had amazing seats. Fourth or fifth row, I think. The lights went down, and that voice . . . that voice. Simply amazing. My memory has gone a bit hazy. I think the first song was “Feels So Different.” Then I think came “I Want Your Hands on Me,” and then “Troy,” which to this day is the single most amazing vocal performance I’ve ever heard (kd Lang singing “Crying” is a close second).

Then came “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” which in 1990 was my favorite song. Not my favorite Sinead song, but my favorite song, full stop. If you know the song, you know the vocals end and there’s a few bars of just instrumentation. Well, at this concert, that section started, and Sinead walked offstage. The band played and played and played, the poor drummer got more and more fancy with the bit that was supposed to signal the end of the song, but nothing. Finally they stopped playing, and about five minutes later there was an announcement that the show was over, so long, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And to add insult to injury, because the concert had already started, there were no refunds, nor was the show rescheduled. Just a 15-minute concert that ended with no explanation.

So when my brother, who’s in town visiting, announced he’d bought us tickets to see Sinead tonight, I was skeptical. I explained to both brothers what had happened the last time I saw Sinead, and as brothers are wont to do, they both called bullshit on me.

You can imagine their surprise when the first words out of Sinead’s mouth tonight upon taking the stage were, “Last time I was in Austin, I had a panic attack in the middle of this song and had to leave the stage,” and the band launched into “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

So almost 18 years after she started singing it, Sinead finished that song, and she got a standing ovation for it. I can’t help but wonder how many other people in the auditorium were at that 1990 concert, and I wonder if they were as impressed as I was that she was able to come back and put that ghost to rest.