Lilith Fair: The RISE & FALL of the All-Girl Festival

The rise and fall of Lilith Fair.

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But even some of the female artists who’d later become part of Lilith Fair would have to be convinced of its value. What’s funny is that Lilith Fair was not the first women’s music festival as the folky Michigan Womyn’s Festival — had already been going on for 2 decades, until it called it a day in 2015. Sheryl Crow would tell vanity fair in 2019


I remember talking to my agent about touring with another female, and the response was, “You don’t want to do that because it won’t sell tickets.”. But by the 90’s things had changed from a decade prior and either managers or record labels weren’t paying as close of attention as they should have. According to the LA Times women for the first time became the biggest purchasers of music--going from 43% in 1988 to 51.4% by 1997.

The full-fledged version of Lilith Fair kicked off in 1997 with 30 plus stops across North America with 60 plus artists. Regarding the name, it came from a biblical character, Adam’s wife who refused his orders to leave Eden. McLaughlin produced the festival in conjunction with Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond.

It helped that Sarah had a huge album that year as well - 1997’s grammy award winning Surfacing - which featured the popular songs like “Angel” about the overdose of the Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin and “building a mystery.”

The album sold 16 million copies worldwide and offered the perfect publicity to help bring some buzz to her new festival The 1997 incarnation of Lilith Phair was the top grossing touring festival of the year, outpacing lollapalooza. By the end of the decade it became the top grossing festival of the late 1990s.

Over the three years of the festival, there’d be 135 shows in cities mostly in the U.S. but along with a few dates in Canada as well. Featuring well known acts like Jewel, Sheryl Crowd, Liz Phair, Fiona Apple Paula Cole, Lisa Loeb, Jewel and Sheryl Crow.

The festival featured 3 stages - the Main Stage, Second Stage and Village Stage. The Village stage was for up and coming talent. Two artists that broke out in part thanks to their features on the Village Stage were Dido and Christina Aguilera.

Yet, even with all that commercial and artistic success, or maybe because of it, the festival came under harsh scrutiny, even from other female artists.

In a 1997 interview with Rolling Stone, Shirley Manson from Garbage criticized the tour saying:

“I think they only showed one side of who women are — it was this cozy, middle-class, we-all-love-each-other and share-a-view-of-the-world and let's-hold-hands-and-go-forth-unto-the-world and show-how-great-we-are thing. And there's a million other women who don't feel that Lilith said anything for them. That said, Lilith is important because there are women who really do need fellowship and support. Because not everyone is like me — a loudmouthed f--ker.”

In addition, the tour was attacked by music critics, the Christian right and other feminists. In the Dallas observer, critic Gina Arnold wrote “It is, in short, a total crock of sh*t.” The LA Times would highlight some other criticisms the festival dealt with including being called “Girlapalooza” . . . “Lesbopalooza” . . .

Critics of the tour called it exclusionary to men however the road crew and backup musicians were men in some cases.
The final Lilith fair in 1999 saw, Prince, who was going as “The Artist” as the time, also joined the festival for one show, performing “Everyday is a Winding Road” with Sheryl Crow. In interviews, Sarah McL often questioned why people assumed that celebrating women meant denigrating men by default. Lilith--attendees were made up of 30% men. Critics also lambasted the festival for not being diverse enough when it came to the artists on the bill, at least for the first year of the festival.

In response to these critiques and especially out of the fear that Lilith Fair would come off as simply a folk festival, festival producers who were flush with cash, greatly expanded the tiypes of artists and genres that were included in the 1998 edition including hip hop, most notably featuring missy elliott. The organizers also bumped up the number of shows from 37 to 57.