[sound engineer] Check, one, two. Check.
Does anyone else get a little bit sad
that they never got to go to Lilith Fair?
Featuring only women artists,
so it was really, really cool.
It was an all-female music festival from
1997 to 1999, and I am shook to my core.
[Olivia Rodrigo] I remember someone
bringing it up a few years ago.
And doing research on it and finding out
that all of my favorite artists had...
had played, um, at this event.
Somebody like Sarah McLachlan and
Sheryl Crow, Pat Benatar, Fiona Apple,
Jewel, and all these people that I
had spent my whole life just adoring.
[crowd cheers]
I was in disbelief that
I'd never heard of it before.
And also just thinking that
the name sounded really cool.
"Lilith Fair."
Wow, that's really interesting.
It's quite curious because
almost everybody I know
didn't know who Lilith was,
and she's such a strong
and wonderful feminist figure.
In religious mythology,
- Lilith was Adam's first wife, before Eve.
- [crowd cheering]
She was created out of
the same stuff he was,
yet he refused to treat her as an equal,
so she said, "I'm out of here."
Lilith left the Garden of Eden
and built her own garden,
dancing and singing among women who,
like her,
refused to surrender their strength.
[interviewer] Singer Sarah McLachlan
has launched an all-female tour.
[attendee] Whoo! Whoo!
[McLachlan] One of the beautiful things
about Lilith was we could be ourselves.
There was such power in that.
[cheering]
Wow.
Welcome to Lilith Fair!
I just love hearing music
that comes from the heart.
It shows that the women have power
in the music industry.
[Cole] I feel like this is
the first time we've had a forum
of contemporary women artists,
and people just, they were ready.
This is a celebration of women in music
and the fact that we have a voice.
[interviewer]
So, that question of the possibility that
it further marginalizes "women's music,"
quote, unquote.
[Cole] I think the point is good music
that happens to be women.
Of course,
there are undertones of feminism.
- [chuckles]
- [interviewer] Right. You got that right.
And that can't hurt, 'cause the world
needs some of that, I think.
[McLachlan] It was a massive success.
And it changed people's lives.
It changed my life.
And yet, people don't like change.
There's a reason that Lilith still remains
mostly unheard of or misunderstood.
Because if you stand up for something,
there is gonna be
an equal and opposite reaction.
- [crowd cheering]
- [applause]
One of the things I thought was
so unique about the Lilith Tour was
everybody was always around everybody.
- Hello.
- Two, three.
Another day goes by
And still the children cry
Put a little love
Are we gonna go to the Mmm... Uh.
Put a little love in your heart
I mean,
the Lilith Tour was full of rock stars,
but that feminine energy, I think,
usurped the ego.
There was no separation between artists.
Nobody was more important
than anybody else.
With women, there's more of a communal
thing, and it was so important in a moment
where there wasn't a lot of support for
women, particularly in the music industry.
[door bell chimes]
- Hi, Sarah. How ya doing?
- Pretty good. How are you?
[McLachlan] I remember, every time I'd go
to a radio station, they'd play a song.
They're like, "Yeah, yeah,
it's a really great song,
but, you know, we added
Tracy Chapman this week"
or "We added Jewel this week,"
and I was like, "And?"
"What's that got to do with me?"
Those are all
very different artists than me,
but we all kind of got lumped into
the same category.
There's room for one of us?
They said women were not supposed to
be played back-to-back on the radio.
"Oh, it's too much.
People will change the channel."
It just never made any sense to me.
In the early '90s,
all the radio programmers were men.
All the promoters were men.
It was inane that we weren't able to do
what it was we knew we could do.
["All I Wanna Do" plays]
["Sleep to Dream" plays]
["You Oughta know" plays]
There was a great rush of
female singer-songwriters.
You had rock and roll women,
you had hip-hop women,
you had folky women, you had
folk-rock women making all kinds of music.
They keep talking about female singers,
and suddenly,
you're all lumped together
when you don't sound alike.
Exactly. Well, because it's
supposedly a "fad" or whatever.
There's still this media perception
of it being cute or novel or a fluke.
Women aren't flukes. [chuckles]
[cheering]
[Phair]
When you're in a male-dominated industry,
you don't run into other female artists,
and worse,
you're being pitted against each other.
So we all knew,
although we'd never talk about it.
I don't wanna talk about it.
Shut up.
This area right here, you can see
how Jewel dominated her competition.
[Phair] And I think we felt, in one sense,
the competitors in us would be like,
"All right."
And then, in another sense,
this great sadness. Like, "Why, why?"
That was a very '90s ethos,
because it wasn't an easy time either.
Are you a scorned woman?
[Jewel]
The larger culture was straight-up toxic.
Then you're the president,
and you're humping the fat chick.
[audience laughs]
Be a little more sexy.
With a body like that.
- Yeah, yeah! Whoa.
- Whoa.
- [squeals]
- [audience laughs]
What are you doing?
[audience cheers]
The predominant movement
at the time was shock jocks.
- [radio host] Goes off
- [radio host 2] Shock radio.
Getting the b*ner.
I like the big, fat b*tch.
[Jewel] I'm 19, and they would go,
"Jewel, how do you give a blow job
with those teeth?"
Or, "You may have heard me describe
my next guest
as a large-breasted woman from Alaska.
Jewel, how are you?"
And I was like,
"You must be that small p*nis man
I've heard so much about
from South Carolina."
And I was escorted out.
Howard Stern Interview Show
with Suzanne Vega.
Come here. Come here.
Suzanne, what's the big deal?
Suzanne is a
Guys are not responding to you
in the proper way.
They're not seeing you
as a little bit of a, uh, sex image.
Yeah, well, we've discussed this already,
about the makeover thing.
I like to cover myself.
That's why I dress the way I dress.
I wanted people
to see my face and my hands,
and to think about my lyrics.
But the pressure was on
to be sort of larger than life,
- to be more like Madonna.
- [camera shutter clicks]
In the '80s, she used sex to sell records.
That was her empowerment message,
which was great for her,
but it was not something
that I was going to do.
[Phair] I was sent to a magazine sh**t,
and they asked me to wear
trousers and suspenders
that just went over my n*pples,
so I had no shirt on.
Everyone says, "You have this big record."
"You're in the top whatever list."
And I'm like, "I'm devalued."
Everything that I was good at,
that I was skilled at,
that I had worked my entire life for,
boiled down to, "Do her t*ts look good?"
She looks great in the interview.
She needs a more flattering picture,
don't you think?
Well, she's got her mouth wide open
on this shot.
But she's a great singer. Mark my words.
You're gonna hear from Liz Phair
for a long time.
So, yeah.
I was ready to quit that first year.
[Newman] Her debut album in 1988
established her as a new force
in Canadian music.
Sarah McLachlan joins us now
from her hometown of Halifax.
- Hi, Sarah. How are you?
- Hi.
What was it like
growing up in Halifax for you, then?
Uh, how long do we have?
[both chuckle]
[McLachlan]
For me, as a good Canadian girl,
I had to sort of find my way through
to who I was.
You see,
I was raised not to have an opinion,
not to open my mouth and say anything.
My mom was incredibly strict.
I wasn't really allowed
to go out and do anything.
I didn't really have any friends.
Like, I could not be myself at home.
I knew you wanted to tell me
I was grounded most of my adolescence
for the tiniest of infractions.
But, really, it was just 'cause my mom
wanted to keep me home to "protect" me.
I remember begging to be in a band.
And she was like, "Don't go thinking
you're anything special.
Don't go thinking
that you can really advance
or get anywhere
because that doesn't happen.
You're gonna fail."
Well, that sucks. I don't believe that.
So, you know,
my mom was really the first one
to help push me towards having
my own belief system in myself
by doing the opposite,
by telling me I wasn't good enough.
I was like,
"Oh, I'm gonna be good enough."
I need people around me
who support me and have my back
and actually like me for who I am.
For me, that was Terry McBride,
my manager,
Dan Fraser, my road manager,
and Marty Diamond, my agent.
There was a mutual respect there,
and that was really, really important
to me.
Everyone around Sarah and her crew
and her band,
they were very open,
and you could see the magic.
I would be the one to hold you down
Kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes
[McLachlan]
There was so much happening, so fast.
[reporter] Sarah McLachlan is one of
the busiest women in the music industry.
[reporter 2]
A force that just keeps on growing.
[reporter 3]
She's on the verge of pop superstardom.
[whispering]
They're interviewing Sarah right now.
[Fraser] Working with Sarah,
Terry was the brains of the operation.
And I was [chuckles]
I was on the touring side.
We were all a big family,
and we all kind of found solace
in ourselves
and in what we were trying
to achieve every day.
[McLachlan] My band and crew,
we'd go out on the road.
Mostly men, yes.
- I got it.
- Oh, yeah.
[McLachlan]
But I wasn't even thinking about it.
[laughs]
They were all great people.
And off we went.
I thought that was normal.
But I didn't know the position I was in.
Coming from Canada,
I was sheltered to a certain degree,
until I got signed to an American deal.
I remember going down to LA for a week.
The A&R guy was like,
"Well, you know, if you lost five pounds,
you know, we could do this with you."
They were looking at my hair, going,
"If we could do this and fix it."
And I came down there feeling, A,
just fine about my body,
never gave it a second thought.
Actually, maybe we should move back.
Watch it right there.
Just because they come and go
and then they won't smash into me.
- Okay.
- We don't want that.
They won't be inclined to pinch my a*s
or something to make me scream.
And after a week there, I was starting
to not feel good about myself.
Do you like my Medusa?
She's a nice reminder to me.
And I was so young and green and naive.
If this is what a major label looks like,
and that's what they expect from me,
I'm like, "This is...
No, I can't do it."
Then I realized that I was missing
that sense of connection and community.
Two, three, check. Hello, hello.
I feel lonely.
This is a weird job,
and it would be so nice to connect
with other women
who are doing a similar thing to me.
But that's when promoters started saying,
"You can't do this."
None of your business
Saying, "You can't put two women
on the same bill. People won't come."
Which was complete bullshit.
[Donlon] At the time, believe it or not,
promoters wouldn't put two women
back-to-back on the same bill
because the tickets wouldn't sell,
which was absolutely ridiculous.
[Schellenbach] If you did,
it was called a "p*ssy package."
"Come on down. It's girl's night."
And like, "Th-This many bands
and free drinks for the ladies."
And it was, like, a weird stigma
around that.
And certainly, that put a huge fire
under my butt to prove them wrong.
["Saturn Girl" plays]
And the first person
I reached out to was Paula Cole.
my dreams to break through
They don't believe in my words
They don't believe in my world
"Oh, you're lost in another world
Oh, you're lost, you Saturn girl
Oh, you crazy girl
Oh, you Saturn girl"
[Cole] Sarah showed up at a gig of mine,
and she asked me to come on tour with her.
That was the beginning.
- Okay.
- [crew member] Okay what, Dan?
We're ready to rock.
["Where Have
All the Cowboys Gone?" plays]
[Cole] I knew how rare it was for a woman
to open for another woman on the road.
So would I open the show,
and I would speak to the audience,
and I would say, "Listen."
I just wanna say that I'm very grateful.
I'm always grateful when I see women
supporting other women in this business.
- [cheering]
- It's such a rare and wonderful thing.
And you could feel
the ripple of the zeitgeist,
this realization throughout the audience.
They knew it was true.
They knew it was f*cked-up. [chuckles]
And it kept doing well and well and well.
Where have all the cowboys gone?
And selling out and selling out.
Yippy-yi, yippy-yay, yippy-yi
And I think we all realized
that there was something there.
Yippy-yi, yippy-yay, yippy-yi
Do you sit here
and you videotape everything?
It's relentless.
So, that then expanded.
[McLachlan] What I remember feeling is,
"Oh, my God. This is so much fun."
She re-engaged and was so excited.
And it was that, that everyone went,
"We should do some more of these."
Why don't we get a couple of other artists
and do a couple of other shows?
And she went,
"They have to be all female."
I went, "Huh. Okay."
[cheering]
[McLachlan]
Look at all these summer festivals.
They're all completely male-dominated,
yet there's all these amazing women
out there making music.
Why don't we ask some of them
if they wanna come do something?
And it was as simple as that.
It wasn't easy. [chuckles]
It was long, long days.
And Marty, Terry and myself
negotiated every deal.
[Diamond] I lived 3,000 miles away
from the core group,
so I was on the phone.
- Marty.
- What days are they?
There always was a sense of resistance
from promoters.
I was doing all the talent outreach.
And getting a lot of no's.
You know, for me, it was, like, a no was
a reason to come back harder.
[Vega] At first, I didn't get it.
I thought,
"Why is she making this all-female show?"
[camera shutter clicking]
And then she explained to me
that this was deliberate.
She was doing it deliberately
to show the promoters
that you could have an all-female lineup
and that it would do well.
And I thought, "Oh, yeah.
Okay, great. Sign me up. I'll do it."
- ["Tom's Diner" plays]
- [audience clapping to beat]
I open up the paper
There's a story of an actor
Who had died while he was drinking
It was no one I had heard of
And I'm turning to the horoscope
And looking for the funnies
When I'm feeling someone watching me
And so I raise my head
[cheering]
["Stay (I Missed You)" plays]
You say I only hear what I want to
You say I talk so all the time
So?
At first, my immediate reaction was,
"I don't know if that's a good idea.
I don't really wanna be grouped
with a bunch of women musicians."
I'm a musician.
I went through my whole life
at this all-girls school
where I really didn't wanna be seen
as just a girl who plays guitar.
But then I heard
about who was on the bill.
It was Sarah, Paula Cole,
Aimee Mann, Patti Smith.
So I said,
"Yes, for sure, I would love to do it."
[audience cheering]
You said that I was naive and
I thought that I was strong, oh
I thought
"Hey, I can leave, I can leave"
Oh, but now I know that I was wrong
'Cause I missed you
Yeah, I missed you
There was something different
about being able to hang out with
and talk to other women
who were leading their bands.
Being backstage with people
that I was such a big admirer of
You know, being a musician,
you're very alone.
And to be able
to have conversations with other people
about their experiences,
"You feel that way? Oh, my gosh.
I feel that way too.
I thought I was the only one."
[audience cheers]
You know, that was an unusual place
where you could feel at ease.
I only hear what I want to
[audience cheers]
[Loeb] Thank you.
[McLachlan] We did four shows in 1996
as sort of test runs.
And I just wanted to be able
to replicate that over and over again.
- It's over.
- [crew member] Yes.
It was a success and I'm very happy.
[Fraser] At the end of the day,
we just kind of sat
on the floor in the room,
and we said, "Let's do this."
Like, "Let's build a festival."
Not four shows. Let's do 35 shows.
I think the label was very,
like, "Oh, you can't do this."
Like, "That's crazy," right?
And, well, we basically said, you know,
"Stuff it. We're gonna do it."
That turned into '97.
Originally, I don't think any of us
were thinking as wide as it went.
[McBride] Before we launched, I said,
"You've got to come up
with a name for this.
Because I need to brand it."
[McLachlan] I was talking to a writer
friend of mine, Buffy Childerhose,
And I said,
"What do you think would be a good name?"
[Childerhose] She wanted something
that well represented
women and female power.
She'd mentioned Eve.
And I said to her,
"Have you heard about Adam's first wife?
You should call it Lilith."
- [painter] Do you want me to draw it?
- No.
I just thought
it was cheeky and reactionary.
But it was a beautiful name,
and I put "Fair" on the end of it
because I like the play on words,
fair being beautiful,
fair being equal, and fair being
a celebration or a festival.
[McBride] There was a lot of challenges
because the business just wasn't
set up for it.
First with the promoters,
which Marty mostly had to deal with.
There was a little bit of a convince
that this wasn't just a regional success.
And so, I just sort of thought,
"Okay, who's out there
that I'm listening to that I really love?"
["Everyday Is A Winding Road" plays]
And we had a wish list.
Sheryl was one of those artists
that worked her a*s off
to get to where she was.
Her record was huge.
Sarah McLachlan called me,
and I was absolutely like,
"Oh, my goodness.
I mean, mana from heaven."
[Diamond] Sheryl Crow joined the tour.
Everyday is a winding road
I get a little bit closer
Everyday is a faded sign
I get a little bit closer
To feeling fine
[McLachlan] She got it.
She knew what we were trying to do.
She was part of it,
she was deeply invested in it.
It was kind of like sisters in arms,
and I was so grateful to have her there.
We always viewed it
that we needed a co-headliner.
Like, it was always like,
"Okay, one plus one equals three."
Who's the one plus one equals three?
["Fast Car" plays]
Tracy was a musical anomaly
in the best way possible.
She was an artist
that was a groundbreaker.
She was hard to get, and an important get.
And you have to understand
that I came from in that place,
like, maybe selling out
to 2,500 or 3,000 people.
Sheryl, same thing.
Tracy Chapman, she was bigger.
So independently, we had fan bases.
Together, I thought,
"How could this fail?"
We took very low guarantees.
In some cases, we took no guarantees.
So we took all the risk.
And we didn't have a lot of sponsorships
'cause people just didn't see it
doing anything.
[truck beeping]
I remember specifically one conversation
with the water company,
and they were like,
"No, we're kind of really focusing
on a male audience."
And I was like, "It's water."
We're here with Sarah McLachlan,
who is defacing the water bottles.
- Hey, they're not sponsoring us.
- There you go.
So much of the organization's
been taken care of
and now most of the huge things
sort of fall on the shoulders
of my tour manager, Dan Fraser.
'Cause he's running this thing,
which is 67 people and seven semis
and six tour buses and, you know,
it's all on his shoulders now.
You know, I just get up there
and sing every night.
Okay, we'll see you down
at The Gorge. Here we go.
[Diamond] I don't know
if you've ever been to The Gorge,
but it's really f*cking steep, you know.
And The Gorge is not in Seattle.
[McLachlan]
I remember the first show at The Gorge.
Promoters were saying, "People won't come.
People won't buy those tickets."
[McBride] And when 15,000 people
showed up
[cheering]
we went, "Bingo, now we have something."
["Down On Me" plays]
[radio host 1]
The Lilith Fair bill is incredible.
[radio host 2]
Joining McLachlan on the bill
will be Jewel, Paula Cole, Tracy Chapman,
Suzanne Vega,
jazz singer Cassandra Wilson,
and Fiona Apple, Joan Osborne
and The Cardigans.
[Diamond]
Maybe the better question is, who isn't?
[Carlile] I would go to The Gorge
in Washington State,
which is where I'm from,
and then try to get tickets to shows
I didn't have tickets to.
And I knew that there was this concert
that was gonna be all-women
and that Sarah McLachlan
was involved in it.
So I kind of knew that I was
going up there for, like, a special one.
But nothing really could have prepared me
for that experience,
a sort of coming-of-age and total freedom.
I was the only person
out of the closet in my high school.
I was just this punky little baby d*ke
running around.
And it had the feeling
of the beginning of something
because there was so much happening
for LGBTQ people.
1997 was the same year
that Ellen DeGeneres came out,
courting so much controversy
but also so much hopefulness.
And from the audience perspective,
Lilith Fair felt like a real-life
backyard manifestation of that, to me.
["I Don't Want to Wait" plays]
I just wanna say
that I'm really glad Lilith has started.
I'm here because Sarah is very talented.
She's here for the chicks,
we're here for the music.
I'm here for the chick It's a chick fest.
[Mulligan] This is Much West at Lilith
Fair '97, the kickoff date at The Gorge.
I-I was wondering
what the common voice might achieve here.
I think Lilith Fair is a symbol of hope.
Not only is there
a tremendous amount of support,
but I think this is just a metaphor
for what could be in other areas of life.
[Cole]
It was like a perfect day, clear blue sky,
the majesty of The Gorge sold out,
and us coming together.
And we realized, like, this is something
that's much bigger than us
or what we even thought it could be.
There was magic in the air.
And that was the first day of Lilith Fair.
[concertgoer] We saw some new people
who we hadn't seen before.
- [reporter] Like who?
- Like I've never seen Paula Cole.
- [reporter] And?
- And she was great. She was excellent.
I don't wanna wait
For our lives to be over
I want to know right now
What will it be?
I don't wanna wait
For our lives to be over
Will it be yes or will it be sorry?
Doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo
Could you in your wildest of dreams
have envisioned that hill full of people?
[McLachlan] Um. [chuckles] There is
a lot of people. It's so exciting.
The whole day, I mean,
I keep thinking I gotta slow down
or I'm gonna be exhausted
by the time I get on at ten o'clock
'cause I've been going since this morning.
But, yeah, I'm just having
such a fantastic time,
the energy's so great
and everybody's just like,
"Thank you so much for doing this."
[interviewer] So this is
your very first concert ever?
Very first concert ever.
[interviewer] So why is this the one?
'Cause I love Jewel. Love her.
["Near You Always" plays]
Don't think you realize the effect
You have over me
And please don't look at me like that
[audience cheers]
[Jewel] One of the things I was criticized
the most for in my music was sincerity,
which is kind of funny.
But I have to say that
when I sang for Lilith,
what I noticed in the audience was
kind of unabashed sincerity.
Please don't kiss me so sweet
[song continues]
Please don't touch me like that
Makes every other embrace
Seem pale and shallow
And please don't look at me like that
It just makes me want to
Make you near me always
For me, looking around,
men, especially in the '90s,
were very hetero-focused.
And that mentality made it
where men didn't know
that they had permission
in their peer group
to go see a female concert.
But to this day, I still see
men that are metal fans love my music,
and they always come up to me
kind of furtively,
and they're like,
"I really like your stuff."
And it makes me wanna
Make you near me always
[audience cheers]
- [Mulligan] How'd you like the concert?
- It was great.
- Who'd you come to see?
- Tracy Chapman.
[Mulligan] All right.
["Baby Can I Hold You" plays]
Baby, can I hold you tonight?
[Cole] Tracy Chapman was a goddess
and delivered such a powerful set.
Ooh, at the right time
[Chapman] Lilith Fair Tour,
it was a great thing to do.
In some ways, doing a-a festival like that
is actually easier
than playing your own show
because I-I didn't feel any pressure.
[McLachlan] None of us missed Tracy's set.
["New Beginning" plays]
Start all over
Start all over
[Runnals] After the show that night,
the vibes were so good
that we just camped backstage.
I was in my early 20s.
Basically, what I did was run
the main stage production office.
And it wasn't until we actually hit
the road that we really understood
the magnitude
of what we were trying to create.
["Sweet Surrender" plays]
[Runnals]
We realized we don't have enough crew
to take this festival
to the next city tomorrow.
And took a couple local crew guys
and hired them on the spot
and said, "We're gonna give you
20 minutes, go home, pack a bag,
you're on the road with us
for the summer."
By comparison,
something like a Lollapalooza,
they were doing 15 or 18 shows.
We did 40.
So that's four or five festival shows
in a week.
It was absolutely bonkers.
It felt like we were building the airplane
while we were already flying it.
It literally felt
like there was a woman's touch
all the way through it.
I mean, not only women fronting bands,
but lots of crew members
that were females.
And this was the first time
you'd seen anything like it.
[technician] Right now,
we're just running big long cables
across the stage and up and over.
[Donlon]
I think the impact was widespread.
Lilith Fair was looking
for female sound engineers,
and female techs,
and now there's opportunities.
My boss is Gord Reddy.
Well actually all our bosses are
Sarah McLachlan, right?
[Runnals] Lilith was like this incubation
of female talent
in front of and behind the stage,
and I think we really created
something wonderful for a lot of people.
We were the first tour
to bring in extended healthcare.
And these grown men would be crying
because they could send their kids
to the dentist.
In hindsight, it's absolutely remarkable
that we managed to do it.
[McLachlan] "Everything has found a flow.
We've settled into a groove quite nicely.
We are essentially a small traveling town
complete with all the trappings
of small town energy."
The one thing that was a little weird
[chuckles]
was, especially in the beginning,
there was this kind of self-consciousness.
And there was a kind of stiffness
to some of us backstage
that didn't really break
until the Indigo Girls came out.
["Galileo" plays]
And they just broke through all of that.
I am incredibly shy
and I have terrible social anxiety.
And in the culture I was raised in,
you let the more experienced people
come up to you.
I don't know why it was that way.
It's just sort of how I was raised.
You weren't allowed, in a way,
to, like, go up to them.
But when I got on Lilith,
I remember the Indigo Girls were
the greeters of the tour,
like, "Hi" and "Welcome."
Hey.
So it was a relief to have somebody
to kind of be forward that way. [laughs]
How long till my soul gets it right?
Can any human being
Ever reach the highest light?
Except for Galileo
[audience cheering]
[Saliers] Took a minute.
'Cause they were like, "Amy and Emily
are knocking. Don't answer the door."
[chuckles]
I think there's a real effort to
for everybody to meet each other
and to support each other.
- Hi. Karen.
- What's your name?
[McLachlan] I remember early on,
Amy and Emily were just like,
"Okay, who's gonna sing with us?"
And I was like [gasps]
"Really, you want me to sing with you?
I would love to.
I wanna sing with everybody."
She says, "Well, why aren't you asking?"
And I was like, "You can just do that?
You can just ask?"
I remember it being a huge lesson for me.
I was like, "Oh, that was so easy."
[chuckles]
[Saliers] Just what Amy and I are really
into is making music
a collective thing where everyone
gets together and sings.
So those are my favorite times.
And then the idea was born
of doing a last song all together.
So suddenly, these artists were backstage
practicing their harmonies,
and it was almost surreal.
["Big Yellow Taxi" plays]
Sheryl Crow.
They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
I had a sense that people were
a little scared 'cause we were so g*y
and so, like, puppy dog-like
and fanning out on everybody.
Not Sheryl.
Do that Sheryl Crow thing
on the first two lines.
- Whatever that thing is.
- [barks]
[musicians laugh]
- [Ray] Ready?
- [Crow] Okay.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Where is the fame?
[Ray] There it is.
Where is the fortune?
[musician] You sound like Sheryl Crow.
Where is the world that denies you?
Who is to blame
When my heart finally forfeits
To a road that will only misguide you?
Yeah, that's good. That's good.
[Ray] You sit in a room with them
and you realize
how incredibly gifted they are.
And they've made it for a reason,
you know? And it's humbling.
Anybody that's back there, y'all,
come on out and join us.
We're gonna have a hootenanny.
The representation for women
in rock music wasn't there,
and then particularly for q*eers,
we really had to find
a lot of our own way.
- ["Closer To Fine" plays]
- [cheering]
[Saliers] You know,
we really wanted a broader audience.
We just thought,
"Well, this is a great opportunity."
I'm tryin' to tell you somethin'
'Bout my life
Maybe give me insight
Between black and white
And the best thing
You ever done for me
Is to help me
Take my life less seriously
Hey, it's only life after all, right
[yodeling]
- The less I seek my source
- The less I seek my source
Closer I am to fine
[Saliers] I was just thrilled by that
night after night after night.
I never got tired of it.
There were so many crystallized moments
of sheer joy, you know?
It was of the women. [chuckles]
[song continues]
I went to the doctor
I went to the mountains
I looked to the children
I drank from the fountains
And we go to the doctor
[Carlile] The life-affirming experience
of watching the Indigo Girls.
They were somehow part of the glue
that held all that emotion together
for those women.
And seeing those women onstage unconcerned
with whether it made them look g*y
or overtly feminist or angsty or angry
or any of the things
that the Indigo Girls were
getting thrown at them.
Pointing us in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source
For some definitive
Everybody now.
Closer I am to fine
I just thought
there's so much possibility in that.
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine, yeah
- [song ends]
- [cheering]
We're calling it Camp Lilith.
It's like summer camp
because basically all the artists'
dressing room doors are open,
everybody's playing acoustic guitar
on the floor
and sitting around
singing each other's songs.
- [screaming]
- [cheering]
It's just a really great,
positive, ego-free energy.
["Lovefool" plays]
Dear, I fear we're facing a problem
[Jewel] I remember Lilith
just became a freight train.
Like, holy smokes, this took on
a life of its own that you can't control.
It kept snowballing.
Every day, it evolved and changed
and it grew into so many different things.
I don't know if any of us were
understanding the magnitude of it.
[reporter] Audience reaction
to Lilith Fair was overwhelming.
[reporter 2] Thousands of ticket sales,
hundreds of millions
of dollars in revenue.
[McLachlan] Look at what's being created.
Look at the beautiful feeling,
the sisterhood
and everybody out there
having this amazing experience.
It was the best drug in the world.
It was as if we had been out there
exploring the galaxy kind of all alone,
and when we showed up
and there were all these tour buses
and all these different women artists,
it was like, "Whoa. Is this heaven?"
[song continues]
And there was a lot of glitter.
Sometimes I still find glitter,
like, in my underwear.
We're making money.
We're making money for ourselves.
We're making money for the music industry,
so that gives us
a certain amount of power.
Terry was the one who said,
"Well, what if we get a company
to give us a hundred thousand dollars
and talk about how they can also give
the same amount of money to a charity?"
They were really looking at sponsors
who were true to the cause.
Nobody was really doing that.
["Who Will Save Your Soul" plays]
People livin' their lives
For you on TV
They say they're better than you
And you agree
She would take a dollar
from every ticket sold
and give it to a local charity
for every place that we went to.
In the spirit of Lilith Fair,
in the spirit of promoting women,
promoting a cure for this cancer
once and for all.
We have given $2.5 million to charity
which made me extremely proud
to be a part of this whole thing.
[cheering]
[Jewel] Everybody was doing well
on that lineup.
We were having massive hits.
I went from selling zero records
in three years
to selling a million albums every month.
Sarah was just starting to test run
her new album, Surfacing.
[reporter] Her fourth album debuted
at number two on the Billboard charts.
[Colvin] It was all, like,
hitting us really quickly.
And for me, serendipitously,
I was having a hit record
come up the charts,
and the only reason I did know
what was happening is
because of the audiences at Lilith Fair.
- [audience cheering]
- ["Sunny Came Home" plays]
And we would start it with that
[imitates guitar]
and my bandmates and I just looked
at each other
and we were like, "What is going on here?"
When we started getting that reaction,
I'll just never forget it.
And Sunny came home with a mission
She says, "Days go by, I'm hypnotized
I'm walking on a wire
I close my eyes
And fly out of my mind
Into the fire"
I never expected to play in front
of 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people, ever.
And I felt lucky.
[McLachlan] The first year of Lilith Fair
was such a massive success.
And then a few months later,
Paula, Shawn, Sheryl,
Jewel, Meredith and myself,
we were all nominated
at that year's Grammy's.
[guitar riff]
[audience cheering]
[Colvin] This was my dream come true.
I wrote a song that was nominated
for Grammy Awards.
[Badu] And the Grammy goes to
Shawn Colvin and John Leventhal.
Songwriter, Shawn Colvin.
John Leventhal, producer.
This is too cool.
We've been doing this a long time
and, uh, it's been a long road,
and this does matter.
- We appreciate it, thank you.
- [audience cheers]
We were all nominated
for multiple, multiple Grammys.
I was nominated for seven that night.
And now let's find out
who this year's best new artist will be.
- Paula Cole.
- [speaker] All right.
[audience cheering]
This is my dream, getting this award
from Aretha Franklin. [chuckles]
That was amazing.
[Colvin] But then Paula Cole,
Sarah McLachlan and I
were asked to share the stage
and do this medley,
instead of each of us being able
to play our own songs.
Every single song that was nominated
for Record of the Year
should have had their own spot.
[McLachlan] At the beginning of it,
we were like, "This is bullshit."
The other nominees, Hanson and R. Kelly,
got to perform on their own,
so why lump us all together?
We were in the green room.
Like, I know there was
a conversation of, "Do we boycott?"
Tonight, to celebrate
the remarkable music created
by women last year,
here are three great performers.
[McLachlan] Ultimately, the decision was,
"Okay, well, we'll do it.
We're not happy about it,
but this is not the hill
we're gonna die on today."
[Cole] We were still made into a token.
"Women, it's women, it's"
[chuckles] What a notion.
[Colvin] It was just sad. It was just sad.
It's always haunted me,
was that the right thing to do,
to just take what we were offered?
Looking back on it, just say,
"No, we're not gonna perform."
That would have been radical.
And they might have done something
about it.
So in my stupid f*cking unmusical medley,
I happened to raise my hand,
and I didn't shave my armpits.
And, like, that became a thing.
[McLachlan] I was so angry for Paula
to be diminished like that
after such a huge night.
Who cares?
But that's what it became about.
The desire for wealth is as natural
as Paula Cole's armpits.
- Where have all the razor blades gone?
- Sir, please.
Sir, please.
I think I know why the cowboys
aren't coming around. [laughs]
You know what? At first, I thought
she had Don King in a headlock.
- That's what I thought.
- [audience laughs]
[Cole] Then there's Jay Leno
on f*cking Tonight Show
shining his shoes
because it was such a joke.
Then they wanted me to be on the show
and, like, laugh along with it,
and I just No, you know?
[McLachlan blows]
You just pick yourself back up,
and you believe, and you keep going,
and that's what being an artist is.
We did all this,
but, God, we're still... we're still here.
sh*t, okay.
Well, we just gotta keep going.
[McBride] Lilith was,
of all of the big organized festivals,
was the most successful monetarily
and, uh, everybody loved it.
Lilith Fair was a huge success,
so Sarah decided to do it again.
[Diamond]
As many accolades as we were getting,
we were getting slammed
every once in a while,
being called "Lily-white Fair,"
that there wasn't enough diversity.
[reporter] How intentional was it that
there was no hip-hop artists or anything?
I suppose, uh, the lineup is not
as diverse as it could be.
[Saliers] I remember when the criticism
was first coming in,
she was very open-minded to accepting it,
working her way through it, you know,
admitting that maybe mistakes were made.
That's something
I've always admired about her,
was her public discussion
of "Well, let me think about that.
Maybe you're right, maybe there's
something more I need to think about."
We're growing and-and learning as we go
because this is the first time,
like I said, any of us have done this.
So, there's lots of little mistakes,
but they're all lessons,
they're all valuable lessons, you know,
that enable us to get better.
[Diamond] In year one, we had
an opportunity that we never seized.
We need to really do outreach
in terms of other artists
and live in the solution, not the problem.
And as a matter of fact, Lilith '98,
they're talking about the addition now
of some of the R&B acts,
and Erykah Badu is gonna be added.
I'm Erykah Badu,
and I'd like to thank you for having me.
[audience cheers]
["On & On" plays]
I am feeling kinda hungry
'Cause my high is coming down
Don't feed me yours
Why?
[backup singers]
'Cause your food does not endure
I think I need a cup of tea
The world keeps burning
Oh, what a day
This is the best concert
I've ever been to.
Who's your favorite?
Oh. Erykah Badu. Definitely.
[Badu] I know
that being a part of the Lilith Fair
expanded my audience greatly.
You know, people who would not get to hear
of an Erykah Badu,
or listen to even my type
of genre of music
- were exposed to it.
- [audience cheers]
I just adorn myself with my culture
and share that with everybody.
Come as I am and, you know, they accept it
and love it because I am me.
I just thought that was the way it was,
because before, I hadn't experienced
any of the negative stuff that happens.
My welcome into the industry was
by Sarah McLachlan and Bonnie Raitt.
- [drums rolling]
- [audience cheering]
[McLachlan] And we grew
the commercial viability of the festival
because we had a diverse group of artists.
What we hadn't seen on other festivals was
a very mixed genre platform.
It was like Emmylou Harris
or Meshell Ndegeocello.
Then you had Missy Elliott.
They were women that were all
at the top of their game in their world.
[Coppola]
Missy Elliott was already an icon.
She was the sh*t.
And when I found out
she was doing a short set,
yeah, it's a big f*cking deal.
It's Missy Elliott. Come on.
[McLachlan] I loved Missy Elliott.
But when we booked her,
she'd never toured before.
She did her first touring dates on Lilith.
You could just feel the energy of the day
just kind of build and build and build.
[Rempel]
She was meant to arrive at a certain time,
and there's no Missy Elliott.
And then we get a call, it's like,
"Oh, hey. Uh, my bus broke down.
I'm on a highway five miles away.
- But I'm gonna get there."
- [car tires screech]
Five minutes later,
this red convertible pulls up,
some dude she's flagged down
on the highway.
She comes out,
she puts on her inflatable suit.
- What's up, y'all?
- [Rempel] And it happened.
- Uh.
- [audience cheers]
Hey, yo, you know what? Me, I'm supa fly.
And you're about to get up.
Get up with me.
All of a sudden,
you see the audience respond to her.
["Sock It 2 Me" plays]
And she f*cking nailed that sh*t.
Ooh, ah
Sock it to me like you want to, ooh
I can take it like a pro, you know
Do it long throw with the backstroke
My hormones jumping like a disco
I be popping mess like some Crisco
All you gotta say is "Missy, go"
And when you say go
I won't move slow
[Elliott] It was a beautiful thing.
I don't know that I was gonna get
the response that I got.
I felt good
when I was first asked, you know.
And this only just
put the icing on the cake.
Ladies.
["Ladies First" plays]
Ooh, ladies first, ladies first
Come on. Yeah.
Ooh, ladies first, ladies first
Who said that the ladies
Couldn't make it, you must be blind
If you don't believe
Well, here, listen to this rhyme
Ladies first
there's no time to rehearse
I'm divine and my mind expands
Throughout the universe
A female rapper
With the message to send
The Queen Latifah
Is a perfect specimen
Can I get some?
This is one of the best tours
I've ever been on.
I came out on the road
to rock these stages,
and I wanted to do it.
I think it's a good thing
that we highlight ourselves
and give ourselves, you know,
give the ladies in that audience
a positive image to look at.
Of woman who are out here
doing their thing.
["Ready To Run" plays]
You got Dixie Chicks
who bring you kind of a country feeling.
We doing it, that's all I can really say.
Ready to run
Ready to run
Ready to run
Yeah
The irony is
the people who criticized never went.
[song ends]
That is so mean.
f*cked up.
Early on,
there were a lot of female critics
who kinda ripped the crap out of us.
I just don't know
how much more of these little, waifish
alternative singers I can take.
Now please, just give me an old-fashioned,
sweaty, big-tittied b*tch
of rock and roll, okay?
[audience cheers]
Before I really knew that much about it,
I just assumed it was sort of very, um,
like Ladies, you know, of the Canyon vibe.
The earnestness of it
made it a little bit like
this was not to be taken
as seriously as it should have been.
I was kinda, like, poking at it
one minute, but why am I poking at it?
'Cause I really would like to be
hang out with all these people.
That's really what I wanted to do.
I said, "Just come.
Come and see this and witness it,
and I think you'll change your mind."
[Bernhard]
Sarah McLachlan called me, and she said,
"Sandra, we're putting together
somewhat of an experiment. It could fail.
We need your light, your love,
your energy. Will you be there for us?"
I said, "You better believe it, baby."
- [cheering]
- [applause]
They brought people like me on.
So they wanted somebody with some edge.
And then the dates that I was on,
Chrissie Hynde was on.
And then the two of us were, like,
stirring sh*t up.
Now, when these women wrote a lyric and
sang a song, you know they had lived it.
They wrote it, sang it, snorted it.
They f*cked it. They lived it.
They created the road.
There was no road before these women.
One, two One, two, drink your beer!
["Message of Love" plays]
[McBride] At first, Chrissie Hynde
was not a big advocate of Lilith Fair.
[McLachlan]
She came on with a bit of an attitude.
She was like, "I don't even know
what I'm doing here with you b*tches."
And as the shows went on,
she warmed up and went, "Oh,
this is actually this is really fun."
Now the reason we're here
As man and woman
Is to love each other
[McLachlan] During "Middle of the Road,"
I basically went and flashed them
right before the solo.
[audience cheers]
Gobsmacked, Chrissie falls to her knees
and makes a big deal.
I was like, "Yes.
I brought Chrissie Hynde to her knees."
I saw them. [chuckles]
And, my God, they were beautiful.
[Hynde]
Well, they think I'm such a hard-a*s.
I thought it would be a little bit more
flowy dresses and stuff, you know.
But it was just a good tour to get on.
I don't care that it's women.
Like Brigitte Bardot
If you're talking about women in rock,
if you must,
and it is just a media fabrication,
'cause no one really thinks
about stuff like this.
There's a lot of pages to fill.
It's mostly the girl journalists that
give me all this "women in rock" thing.
["b*tch" plays]
[Powers] I was working at Spin
and The New York Times.
Every year was
"the year of women in rock."
Every single year.
That was something that I just rolled with
because I didn't have any choice.
You tell a bunch of boys
that there's going to be this festival
targeted at young women, ah,
you know what their reaction's gonna be.
It's not gonna be, "Yeah, let's go."
It's gonna be a laugh.
Because it's aimed at the wrong people.
It's aimed at regular women.
Somehow, by the '90s,
we had developed this idea
the teenage girl is this frivolous person.
And forget adult women.
The idea that a mom would wanna go
to a musical festival? Oh, my goodness.
I'm a b*tch
I'm a lover
I'm a child
I'm a mother
I'm a sinner
I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your hell
I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
You know you wouldn't want it
Any other way
So take me as I am
[Powers] Just walking in and seeing
all the women together,
after going to concerts for 15 years
and only being, you know,
one of a few women among men,
that was such a great shift.
That felt amazing to me as, like,
a long-time music fan and music critic,
but also weird.
Lilith Fair came from
a very radical place,
but in the moment,
it felt totally mainstream,
totally in the center.
And that was its power.
Every day we did this press conference,
which was a pain in the a*s.
Just something I've been reading,
people referring to this show
as "Chick-apalooza" and your reaction.
I have a bit of a problem with it,
but that's just me.
I just think in some ways
it's a bit marginalizing.
[McLachlan]
It was hard. It was also embarrassing.
It was frustrating because I felt like,
you know, sometimes
the criticism wasn't warranted.
"Here's my stock ten adjectives that
I'm going to punch in to this review."
And I don't find anybody adequately
critiques anything anymore.
Calling it "Vulva-palooza"
and, like, all of these just
ridiculously derogatory crazy things.
[McLachlan] There were many times
I wanted to say, "f*ck you."
[reporter] Don't you lose some power
when you become mainstream?
[sighs] I want it to be successful.
[journalist] Do you think there is
a danger in making gender a genre?
I think the danger lies
in the media lumping all women together.
[reporter]
TIME Magazine last week just reported
"The death of feminism." Is this true?
Oh, please. The death of feminism?
Okay, well, are we as women dead?
The most idiotic questions.
I just wanna know if any of you guys wanna
dish some dirt on-on your fellow artists?
[reporter] Do you guys have a
slumber party in between shows?
[reporter 2]
Is it still mostly a chick thing?
[reporter 3] Respond to
the criticism that, "They must hate men."
[reporter 4]
Man-haters. These women hate men.
I don't think, personally, that any of us
necessarily are against men.
[reporter 5] The perception being
that this music is for women only.
I don't understand
why it's considered exclusionary.
I think when we were just
getting lambasted by the press,
one time I said,
"God, maybe we should include men."
We also plan to be starting
to include men as headliners as well.
Emmylou was like, "Whoa, whoa, honey.
[chuckles]
Can I just say, don't go there."
She said, "Let it be what it is.
Y-You got this."
And I was like, "Yeah, I do. Thank you."
Well, I mean, at that point, it seemed
to me it was already a success.
So I can't imagine why
she would've felt any doubt.
When you think back
to before there was Lilith Fair,
there was so much opposition to it.
There was so much negativity
about the fact that we were
but I can't, uh, emphasize enough
what Sarah has accomplished.
Women are political simply for saying,
"I deserve space."
People read too much into this,
into Lilith, and make an issue.
Because that's how everyone makes a living
by making an issue out of something.
Actually, it just happens
that they're all women artists,
and no one's really making
a big statement, do you know what I mean?
[Mclachlan]
Sinad was treated horribly by the press
and wider culture for speaking out,
and being her authentic self,
unapologetic.
We were all so inspired by her honesty.
[reporter] Your website says a special
guest will open the show at 4:40.
- Yeah, well, we'll have to see
- [audience member chuckles]
It's the Blessed Virgin Mary.
[all laugh]
[O'Connor] To get there and find that I
was so kind of respected by those women
was a major boost to my kind of confidence
and self-esteem, you know what I mean?
That in the very male world,
you can often feel
in the male world of media
and the music business
you can often feel very unheard
as a woman artist, you know what I mean?
But I realized actually
that I had been heard.
Yes, I found it a very healing experience.
["Fire On Babylon" plays]
[Merchant] Nobody missed her set ever.
She would walk out on stage
and open her mouth and the sound
One of the most chilling sounds I've ever
heard was Sinad crying "Fire on Babylon"
through a massive wall of speakers
to 35,000 people.
Fire
Fire
Fire on Babylon
Oh, yes, a change has come
Fire on Babylon
Fire
Fire
[McLachlan] Sinad was really
important for me to have on,
because I was so in awe of her
and her immense power.
[audience cheers]
["Angel" plays]
And then to get to know her a little bit
and to see the vulnerability.
[McLachlan, O'Connor]
In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find
Some comfort here
[McLachlan] She's showing me the way.
If I can create
something half as good as her
I keep telling people
that if the world outside the Lilith Fair
were more like this, I'd wanna spend
more time out there, you know? [chuckles]
[Diamond]
In year two, we needed a co-headliner,
and our first call
and only call was Natalie.
Natalie really embodied free spirit.
She had a freakin' swing.
["Kind & Generous" plays]
[Merchant] It just sounded like
an incredible opportunity,
because when I left 10,000 Maniacs
after 12 years of feeling like
I was the last woman on earth.
I had made a concerted effort
to distance myself
from what was going on
in the business of music.
But Lilith was gentle and friendly,
and I loved that.
- We're at Lilith Fair. Yeah.
- We're best friends.
Is it on?
- Now press the red button.
- I already did.
- Hello, world.
- Hi, world.
You're saving lives here.
And you're opening up a world
to people who would have no way
of getting there, any other way.
It's the coolest place
because everybody can express themselves
internally and externally
and everyone's accepted.
It's like a get-together place,
like, where everyone can get together and
- Have fun.
- have fun.
It's been such an inspiration
to all our lives.
And I'm grateful to be here today.
My heart is truly glad. I love you, Sarah.
- You're the only one that would listen.
- You're here. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
- Feel so much better now.
- Me too.
I'm really happy that there's something
like this that can help.
I'm gonna cry.
I have to go back out there.
I'm bound to thank you for it
[Merchant] Give me a second.
Let me just pull myself together.
Oh!
Isn't it a beautiful sunset?
[Levy] When I attended Lilith Fair,
it was a gorgeously sunny day,
but there's also the possibility
that my memory is just wrapped
in this golden, sepia glow
because being there was one of
the earliest memories I've had of safety.
I was 12 or 13 at the time
and still in the closet
and had been bullied and never really
felt safe anywhere that I was
because I wasn't being myself.
But when you look around
and you see people smiling and laughing
and holding on to each other,
and you just had people who were
seeing themselves, celebrating themselves,
it felt like this
kind of quiet revolution.
I was like, "What is this freedom?
So many happy people,
hugging and kissing."
I am the Lilith Fairy.
F-A-I-R "Fair" with a "y."
I came here and I was very timid.
Being surrounded by so many strong women
helped me come out to myself
and to be totally honest
and not to be inhibited
around other people anymore.
- It just helped me so much.
- [concertgoer] Whoo!
[Nguyen] When I think back,
I think was 12 years old.
Being q*eer, but at that age,
not understanding what that was.
To that point,
I'd never been to a real concert.
I recall groups of
q*eer friends or whatever.
But at the time,
it didn't occur to me at all.
I was just like, "These people look fun."
But I have to be honest,
I think misogyny and h*m*
made it an easy target.
It's almost as though you wouldn't hear it
referenced in the mainstream
without it being the joke.
The largest collection
of female rock singers ever
to tour together.
I wrote a song about it,
and I'd like to share it.
I think it'll really move some people.
- It's called, uh, "Sausage of Pain."
- [audience laughs]
Listen to me. I'm a bi-level haircut away
from Lilith Fair.
And so, I just tried to be a part
of that more dominant narrative
of this f*cking joke, you know.
Like, I'm also in on the joke,
so don't You know?
I won't be associated
with what you think that was, you know?
But, I mean, how devastating is that?
You know, I participated
in the disparagement
of my own components.
[concertgoer] I think it's on
of the only places that you can go
where being a r*cist or a h*m*
or somebody like that,
you're in the minority.
[cheering]
[Vega] The media's perception was
that it was all women,
but actually,
there were a lot of men who came
because they love women
and they wanted to see women performing.
- We're here to see Sarah McLachlan!
- Whoo!
No other way to say it.
It's Sarah McLachlan.
She is the best.
She brings out the love in all of us.
[McLachlan] Every festival that I knew of,
I wouldn't wanna go.
Because I don't think
I'd feel particularly safe.
And I feel like Lilith is
sort of the antithesis of that.
["Never Said" plays]
[cheering]
I never said nothing
Oh, baby, I never said nothing
[Phair] There was no question
that everyone who was there was welcome.
They were not just coming to see music.
They were coming to support an idea.
I can be safe. I can be respected.
I can be open.
I haven't been on a bill like that.
That was a very Sarah experience.
- [squeals]
- [giggles]
I'm not slipping in my tongue. I'm not.
[Vega] The way she interacted
with people backstage was humble.
It was kind. It was very deeply spiritual.
She would leave you little gifts.
She would leave little notes.
[song ends]
[Merchant] Sarah thought
this is our home away from home.
Let's make it feel that way.
There were pillows and tapestries
[chuckles]
and people handing their babies off
to each other as they walked on stage.
Lots of breastfeeding going on
and people bringing
their mothers to the tour.
[Colvin] Lilith Fair was the place to
perform if you were nine months pregnant.
I felt like it was perfect.
[McLachlan]
Erykah brought a baby to the tour.
["What's Going On" plays]
Mother, mother
There are too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
Far too many of you dying
[Badu] I was a new mom.
I was going through, uh, the changes
that we go through as women.
And they really catered
to my feminine emotions
and sensibilities and needs.
We've got to find a way
To bring some loving here today
[Merchant] What I value was
the tangibility that I saw of mothering
and being an artist coexisting.
Mother, mother
Everybody says that we're wrong
And then having Bonnie Raitt scream
in my ear,
"I've waited my whole life for this."
You know?
Is this the camera I look into when I cry?
[laughs]
- Picket signs
- Sister
- And picket lines
- Sister
- Don't punish me
- Sister
- With brutality
- Sister
- Talk to me
- Sister
- So you can see
- Sister
- What's going on
- What's going on
- What's going on
- What's going on
What's going on
The vibe was different.
It was less competitive
and a little bit more considerate.
There was just less macho posturing.
It was just revolutionary and new to me,
because it just hadn't happened before.
["If It Makes You Happy" plays]
[Raitt]
The feeling of camaraderie was palpable.
There was geographic coming together,
generational coming together
and musical coming together
in a way that we wouldn't have intersected
probably before.
We've been far
Far away from here
For me to share the stage
with Bonnie Raitt
who, when I was 17,
she was the first woman I'd ever seen
front a band, holding a guitar.
And she actually inspired me
to do what I'm doing.
If it makes you happy
It can't be that bad
If it makes you happy
Then why the hell are you so sad?
[Badu] She has so much experience
and she was so comfortable.
She waved a lot of that around
like a wand,
and we all were infected by it.
- Bonnie Raitt!
- [audience cheers]
[McLachlan] We had such a range of talent,
from icons like Bonnie
to artists who were just starting their
careers, being discovered at Lilith.
So you have Basically the B stage is
right over home plate.
We can do all kinds of different things
that happen to help promote artists.
'Cause the thing with Lilith is
we gotta be able to break new talent.
["It's All About Me" plays]
Tonight, baby
It's all about me
Oh
- You're really young too, right?
- Yeah. I'm 19 years old.
This is a great opportunity that
I'm not gonna get, you know, all the time.
And also you have new artists
that aren't exactly heard of yet
and are being discovered.
- [cheering]
- ["At Last" plays]
At last
My love has come along
We had Christina on a ten-by-ten deck
in the middle of the field,
next to the bathrooms.
And suddenly, this girl starts to sing,
and the radio's going wild
and people are like,
"You gotta get out here
and see this girl."
And that happened all the time.
["Here With Me" plays]
I won't sleep
And I can't breathe
Until you're resting here with me
["I See God in You" plays]
Every time that I see your face
I wonder
What lies beneath your smile
["Hey, Man!" plays]
And there's a shadow in the sky
And it looks like rain
Yeah, yeah
[Fraser] We didn't just have B stages.
We were one of the first people
to set up a village,
which nobody was doing.
So, we've got over 40 tents
to get set up here every day.
If somebody's on the Village Stage
and it's a brand-new artist
and they perform in front of 2,000 people,
they can walk over here
and sign their new CD
and they'll generate sales for them.
Sarah and all of us wanted
the sponsors to be inclusive
and to be part of what's going on.
Of course,
Lilith Fair was very much pro-choice.
And that's what we did.
But we took it on the chin
in so many places.
[Diamond] We were like a gentle threat
for some people.
- Yay, Planned Parenthood.
- [cheers]
Like, the presence of Planned Parenthood
really flipped people out.
We were in Texas, and a venue decided
that they wanted to exclude
the local Planned Parenthood affiliate
from the event.
I have a long history working
with Planned Parenthood
and being a volunteer for them,
so it just incensed me.
I personally feel like
it's very deceptive of the
people who own this venue to invite the
Lilith Fair knowing
what kind of stance that
we take on these things, and then at the
last minute refuse
to have one of our groups
give out flyers.
[McLachlan]
Joan talking about the pro-choice thing
when she was like, "f*ck that."
I was super proud of her for doing it,
but I was also fighting my good girl,
"don't rock the boat" thing
that I was brought up with
and that was hammered into me
since the moment I was born.
I mean, I think it's asinine
that you have to have this argument
about handing out condoms.
It's pretty silly. But again, free speech.
Everybody has their own views.
Yeah. I really wanna support them
and have it out in the village,
but [stammers]
I just never know what to say.
But you think about it
and see what you want to do.
All right.
[Osborne] The decision was made
that Planned Parenthood
would be allowed in,
but that artists were not allowed
to talk about them.
That was the compromise that was made.
I didn't make that compromise.
So, I put my whole band
in the "I am the face of pro-choice Texas"
t-shirts.
"We want to thank
Planned Parenthood for being here."
["I Feel So Good" plays]
[McLachlan] I had never made a stand
for anything in my life
in that kind of powerful of a way.
So, I was enthralled and envious
of her strength and "f*ck you" -ness.
A national group called Feminists for Life
are angered at Lilith Fair
because they believe
that the refusal of getting a booth
at the Lilith Fair village 'cause they
take a pro-life stance is hypocritical
against the inclusive pro-women attitude
they feel Lilith Fair should invoke.
So I wanted to get your comments on that.
Well, this is my festival,
so I can do what I want. [chuckles]
It was sort of the first time
I kind of stood up and said that.
And I was terrified to say that
because I'm like,
"This goes against everything
that I know how to do.
Just keep your mouth shut."
You know, we, as the organizers,
get to pick and choose the people
who come and table.
[Davis] Dealing with protestors was
a daily occurrence.
We would get folks
that would try to block [stammers]
the audience entrance
at the parking lots.
They would try to bullhorn
and shout people out
at the ticketed entry.
[chattering]
[Fraser] In Atlanta, we had a b*mb threat.
People wanna blow us up
because we're pro-choice.
I'd never seen
that kind of self-righteous rage
and anger aimed at
anything that I was part of.
[Fraser] You don't understand
what it's like to have that responsibility
of having 20,000 people
and somebody looking to blow you up.
[Oberthier] We got 18,000 people here.
If we tell them the truth,
we're gonna have a panic on our hands.
We did have b*mb threats
as well as other call-in threats.
We would validate each of them.
We would seek input from public safety,
both police and fire,
to check for vulnerabilities and breaches
and unattended items, et cetera.
We don't wanna have any harassment.
Any... We don't want anything.
We wanna make sure.
We want to be proactive at all times.
The women who play here, for example,
the Dixie Chicks, I wrote them a letter
and asked them to reconsider singing
and to stand up for women's rights,
what they truly are.
That's why we came up with this shirt.
"Peace and justice begins in the womb,
Sarah."
Jerry Falwell is going after
the Lilith Fair Concert Tour.
Falwell's newspaper,
The National Liberty Journal,
says the tour, which features
women artists, is named for a demon.
For me, I just had
to constantly remind myself of
I can't be everything for everybody.
This festival can't
be everything for everybody.
I could feel that same strange feeling
seeping in again.
That feeling
of I've been on the road too long.
My very essence is starting
to seep away from me.
Something out in the world is shifting.
[crew member] What are you doing?
Uh, just writing in my journal.
Writing the day's exciting exploits.
"Sheryl went off to do Woodstock,
and we got to watch the debauchery
on pay-per-view."
- [guitar plays]
- [cheering]
This is 1999, m*therf*cker.
Take those Birkenstocks and stick
them up your f*ck' a*s.
[Diamond] We had an understanding
with Sheryl Crow
that Sheryl could go do Woodstock.
[Crow] If there's anything to be said
for Woodstock carrying the tradition
of capturing the social consciousness,
then perhaps this Woodstock
definitely stood to its name.
[festivalgoer] SHOW US YOUR t*ts!
You'd have to pay way more
than you paid to get in to see my t*ts.
[Jewel] It was premeditated.
It was self-aware in really negative ways.
And it was just gasoline
on the worst of the '90s male culture.
Monica Lewinsky is a f*cking hoe,
and Bill Clinton is a g*dd*mn pimp.
[cheering]
[Crow] What's going on right now
in the social consciousness is
a lot of young white people who are angry.
[yelling]
[Crow] It was not a matter of them
being led down the path of destruction
by Limp Bizkit or Kid Rock.
They were... They were ready to rage.
[news anchor] New York State Police are
reportedly investigating allegations
that four women were r*ped
at last weekend's
Woodstock music festival.
As the three-day concert ended
Sunday night,
bonfires blazed out of control
and looters battled police.
[reporter] I just wanted to ask Sheryl,
do you have
a new perspective on Lilith Fair now
coming off of what transpired
at Woodstock?
The day I got back, I ran to Sarah's arms,
sobbed into the bosom
of the founder of Lilith.
It really
I mean, that was so shocking for me.
And I'm hoping it's not representing
our future as a nation
or the youth of America.
[Diamond] Looking back,
the enormity of what we had created
was pretty staggering.
We cannot underplay
the importance of gathering.
Lilith did that really well.
[Donlon] The impact was widespread.
There's some fundamental changes
in the way women see the idea
of possibility that was born
at the Lilith Fair.
[Diamond]
These women can sell f*cking tickets.
And we proved that.
The power of music.
The power of women.
And the power of purpose.
[cheering]
But nothing lasts forever.
I won a contest for a radio station
in Columbus to meet Sarah.
We had to send a videotape in
of who her biggest fan was
and they picked it over the radio.
You have allowed radio stations now
We play female artists back-to-back.
That's never happened before
until Lilith Fair.
- That's tangible and you did that.
- That feels really good, let me tell you.
I love her, and I will always follow her.
And I hope she doesn't stay gone too long.
I hope she comes back very soon.
[McLachlan]
This will be the last entry in this book,
as it is officially
the last day of Lilith Fair.
Today, the 31st of August
in the year 1999.
[Harris] I hope that Sarah
is incredibly proud of what she's done
and realizing the reverberations of that
probably affected not just the audiences
but the artists
that she brought into the fold.
[Crow] The other thing
that I took away from Lilith was
that we are businesswomen.
We are women who run our tours.
We are women
that make the creative decisions.
We are women that set the tone
for how everyone gets treated on the road.
I thought, "Oh, man. This is so powerful
that I'm gonna take this with me."
Lilith Fair inspired me
to form our own "Lilith" in our community.
A tour called Sugar Water.
It was totally necessary for us.
[Phair]
It was absolutely because of Lilith Fair
that I had ambition to work
in the music business again.
[McLachlan] It was a completely,
all-encompassing three years.
Let's leave ending on a high note.
Like, we were on top of the world
at that point.
My kingdom is in ruins. [laughs]
Pouring rain.
Oh, my God. We were [chuckles]
We were all a mess on the last day.
I just... I don't quite know
what to do next. [sniffles]
Other than put stuff away. [chuckles]
I think there was a sense of, "We did it."
We changed the world a little bit,
as-as crazy as that sounds.
- There you are. How was your day home?
- Camera. It was good.
How was yours? How you feeling?
I had talked to Sarah a few times,
and I remember her saying,
"We've proved our point.
This can exist.
Now it's time for women to go out
and create their own small Liliths."
[McLachlan]
What do I have to prove anymore?
I know I grew up with Lilith.
I came in incredibly green and naive.
This huge monumental shift
from essentially being a child
to becoming a woman
and becoming way clearer
in who I was and how I was gonna show up
in the world and what I believed in.
- There you go.
- [McLachlan] Excellent. Do you want me to
Sarah wanted to start a family.
Di and myself started our family.
So everybody wanted to take a breather.
In a few hours, you're gonna be playing
your final Lilith Fair concert,
and I'm wondering if that has sunk in
and are you having any second thoughts?
No, I'm-I'm happy
that it's... that I'm going home tomorrow,
even though this has been an amazing ride.
I've loved every minute of it.
- [audience cheering]
- ["I Shall Be Released" plays]
"the very last Lilith Fair"
They say everything can be replaced
Yet every distance is not near
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be
[vocalizing] released
Good night, y'all!
The last hurrah.
That's it. I'm done. No more shows.
A new life has begun. Love, Sarah.
[song fades, ends]
I get asked
at almost every single interview.
"Are you gonna bring Lilith back?
We need Lilith."
And I'm like, "Yeah, we do.
Or we need something like it."
But it would have
to look really different,
because we did revisit Lilith in 2010.
And we didn't succeed.
A real cultural shift had happened.
That whole time that came after Lilith,
the general pop culture was moving away
from singer-songwriters.
There were programmers saying,
"Never again."
[Ray] There were these few years
where radio stations were playing
Lilith Fair stuff
and the next few years were like,
"We don't play that artist.
They were at Lilith Fair."
- It's, like, what? Like, really?
- Too many women.
[McLachlan] The men in power
in the music industry
wanted to keep things the way they were.
So, trying to climb out
from underneath that was very challenging.
But progress, as we know,
always finds a way.
[cheering]
["Cool About It" plays]
[Powers] I recently went to see Boygenius.
Once, I took your medication
To know what it's like
All of these young people singing
at the top of their lungs,
that's what Lilith felt like, you know?
do without it
Knowing that it probably isn't true
[cheering]
[Powers] What was condemned about Lilith
in the '90s is now embraced widely
as this beautiful turn of the wheel
where women are
at the center of our culture.
[Rodrigo] Women singer-songwriters
in the '90s are probably
the biggest source of inspiration
that I have in my career.
I'm constantly looking to them
for inspiration.
They're sort of my Northern Stars.
["If It Makes You Happy" plays]
It can't be that bad
[Crow]
You don't know who you're inspiring.
You don't know who's going to be witness
to what you're doing and think,
"That's what I want to be.
That's what I want to do."
Just like Bonnie was for me.
[song ends]
Hey!
[cheering]
What a joyful noise that is, y'all.
I first came here
when I was ten years old.
But nothing really changed me until 1997,
when I was sitting way out there
at the crest of that hill
and I witnessed for the first time
Lilith Fair.
This is The Gorge.
This is Sarah McLachlan's house.
Please welcome Sarah McLachlan.
["Building A Mystery" plays]
You come out in night
That's when the energy comes
And the dark side's light
And the vampires roam
[Phair] The reason why people
who weren't even there
feel connected to Lilith Fair is
because it really does embody the world
we wish existed right now for us.
We get to celebrate the fact that we were
kind of defying the odds every night.
You woke up screaming aloud
A prayer from your secret God
To feed off our fears
And hold back your tears
Oh, you give us a tantrum
And a know-it-all grin
Just when we need one
When the evening's thin
[McLachlan]
Do I think we still need a sisterhood?
Do I think we need
to fix the broken systems
that have been created by men for men?
Hell yes.
If we want to change things,
we have to continue building these systems
for us.
Building a mystery
[Badu] The encore
was always the best part.
That's when we could totally exhale.
We had done it.
Every night, we had done it.
We had changed the frequency
of the whole room.
It was just a village of very intelligent,
very powerful,
very creative,
very mission-oriented,
very strong women
on stage together putting a period
at the end of a sentence.
Building a mystery
[cheering]
["One in a Long Line" plays]
Don't block the sun from warming me
When it's still cold in this forest
And heavy branches hang over me
And winds whisper in chorus
I have a soft side
And a forgiving heart
But don't mistake me for weak
I'll travel roads
That you will never roam
And carry treasures you will never own
'Cause I am one in a long line
Sound of body, strong of mind
I've worked hard to know myself
You don't get to decide the way I live
Who I love
What I forgive
So, why so hard to take me as I am?
Try to see good in everyone
The bleeding heart of a frailty
But it's getting harder
To find common ground
When you want to derail me
I am a live wire
I am a searing ember
Rising from the deep
The sound of fury
Of our mother's voices
All they fought for carrying me
I am one in a long line
Sound of body, strong of mind
I've worked hard to know myself
You don't get to decide what I believe
What I'd give up
How I grieve
So take your dirty hands
Off of my wing
Feeling reckless
I'm feeling dire
Don't wanna lie in compliance
Afraid to say what I really feel
f*ck your judgment
Your violence
I am a wildfire
I am a forest burned
But I will rise
You'll see
And if you think
That you can bring me down
Well, go ahead and call the cavalry
I am one in a long line
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Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025)
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