August 16, 1997
Publication title: Canadian Press NewsWire, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Toronto
Writer: Unknown
McLachlan oversees triumphant Lilith Fair
The din of female voices was deafening on Friday as Canadian songbird Sarah McLachlan took centre stage at Lilith Fair, the all-woman musical tour organized by the singer herself.
“What a privilege it is to play on the same stage as all these other women,” said McLachlan before launching into a chill-inspiring version of Hold On from her third studio album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, which sold 1.4 million copies in the U.S. alone.
Other acts performing at the day-long event – the most successful North American concert tour this summer – included the Indigo Girls, Jewel, Shawn Colvin and Meredith Brooks. Lilith Fair heads to Montreal on Sunday.
As McLachlan performed, starry-eyed girls mouthed the words to songs like Building A Mystery from her latest album Surfacing. The disk was released a month ago and has already debuted at No. 2 on Billboard magazine’s U.S. album chart.
Earlier in the evening fans leapt to their feet in a standing ovation when McLachlan, Jewel and Brooks accompanied the Indigo Girls on their big hit, Closer To Fine.
After rain washed out the second stage – scheduled to showcase lesser-known artists – Canadian acts the Wild Strawberries, Dayna Manning and Lhasa strutted their stuff on the main platform. A C-stage highlighted pop singers Andi Duncan, EM Gryner and Julia Fordham.
Tickets to the sold-out show ranged in price from $22.50 to $42.50. While the gates to the lakeside amphitheatre opened at 3 p.m., fans with lawn tickets lined up to secure a good location on the grass from as early as 9:30 a.m. for Lilith, which kicked off July 5 in Seattle.
“We brought breakfast and our cell phones to create a Lilith office right here,” said two female insurance brokers who spent the morning camped out on the lawn.
McLachlan has said Lilith is less about excluding men and more about creating a forum for women’s music. With contemporary rock festivals like Another Roadside Attraction and Lollapalooza showcasing increasingly male lineups, McLachlan says Lilith is “working towards a time when we’re not referred to as woman musicians, we’re called musicians.”
The lineup didn’t appear to result in an all-female fan base. The crowd represented an approximately three-to-one female to male ratio.
A group of three men said they came to Lilith because the concept of an all-day femme-fest was appealing.
“We’re here to see the performances, and hey, if there are a lot of single women here, it certainly isn’t any reason to boycott the event,” one of them said.
Despite the fact that McLachlan had a hard time selling her idea to promoters, Lilith has proved to be the summer’s hottest ticket, grossing an average of $478,022 US over its first 14 dates, compared with Lollapalooza, which averaged sales of only $277,542 US in its first 14 outings.
With well over $600,000 Cdn being donated to charity and one dollar of every ticket sold going to local women’s organizations such as LEAF (the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund), Lilith has combined traditional corporate sponsorship with a sense of community contribution.
Although McLachlan has been clear that her stance is less about politics and more about showcasing women’s music, critics have argued that Lilith Fair is too mainstream.
“It’s all folky-pop delivered by white women – I wish there was something a little harder-edged,” Helen Mooney, a Women’s Studies student at York University, said as she watched the show.
Lilith is named after the Biblical Adam’s first and less obedient wife who, according to Hebrew lore, was created to become his equal.
