by: Johnny Black (pg. 28-29)
Welcome to the Lilith Tour: a roving, $16 million grossing, all female Lollapalooza style festival that gentle asks men, What's your problem?
"They call it the Breastfest," says former 10,000 Maniacs' leader Natalie Merchant, unleashing a little whoop of derision, "and we're a bunch of witches or dykes. What's the problem if we were?"
Sitting on a grassy slope in the oppressively humid backstage compound at Hartford, Connecticut's Meadows Music Theatre, Merchant is in full flow. "Why should I have to defend Lilith Fair? We're just a bunch of women out here singing songs."
The Lilith Fair, a traveling festival with an ever-changing roster of female artists, was inaugurated last year by multi-platinum singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. Prevailing wisdom in America's rock hierarchy insisted it couldn't work but it became the highest grossing package of 1997, raking in a phenomenal $16.7m by bussing McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow and more on 37 dates across the USA.
This year, Lollapalooza has called it a day and H.O.R,.D.E. is facing declining ticket sales, but Lilith has expanded to 57 sold-out dates. With 13 busloads of crew and gear, plus a caravan of artists transports, running costs make days off nearly impossible, and the punishing schedule has exacted a cost. Sheryl Crow bowed out early citing exhaution, McLachlan couldn't perform in Columbus because of food poisoning and Me'Shell NdegeOcello's set in Hartford earlier ended abruptly when she collapsed mid-song and had to be carried off. [note from the @Natalie webmaster: Sheryl bowed out before the tour began, her "exhaustion" therefore had nothing to do with the tour schedule]
But, inspired by the biblical winged demoness Lilith, who refused to adopt the missionary position for protomale chauvinist pig Adam, these women aren't taking it lying down. "The spirit on this tour is fantastic," says Merchant. "We're in pretty good shape overall."
It's not just the Lilith artists that are female. "We have chick riggers, guitar techs, sound engineers and, believe me, nobody would want to tangle with our security woman, Shawna." The audience, too, is overwhelmingly of a babelicious persuasion. The Hartford crowd looked to be over 60 percent female, and in Detroit the 20 to 1 ratio resulted in the eventual re-assignment of the only gents loo to accommodate cross-legged queues of anxious ladies.
Responding to criticisms of a lack of diversity last year, the current Lilith sees McLachlan and Merchant sharing stages with Missy Elliott, Bonnie Raitt, Neneh Cherry, Liz Phair, Erykah Badu and Tracy Bonham. In Hartford, on the smaller Village stage, Heather Nova is the standout act of the day and, in the main arena, it's Merchant who rises to the challenge of getting the middle-American crowd to dance. She whirls a long ribbon through the air and theatrically unbraids her hair during her album's title track, but it's her trademark dervish dancing that finally sends them into raptures.
McLachlan winds up the day, but the girl power factor comes into its own when the entire cast fronts the stage to pound out Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, with Raitt, Bonham, Merchant and McLachlan trading verses, alongside a duet of ecstatic fans plucked from obscurity and crammed onto the end of the line.
In the dressing room afterwards, Merchant is exhilarated, on an adrenaline high that has her burbling cheerfully in sharp contrast to her defensive afternoon mood. "You know one big difference between this and a male-dominated rock festival?" she gushes. "When Ozzy Osborne couldn't go on at the Ozzfest this year, the fans rioted. When Sarah couldn't go on, we went out and told the crowd. You know what they did? They applauded and cheered for her, then went home happy."