{"id":17174,"date":"2025-09-12T18:39:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T18:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/17174\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T18:39:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T18:39:04","slug":"lilith-fair-building-a-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/17174\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBack when Sarah McLachlan<\/a> launched the Lilith Fair in 1997, the festival landscape was, well, very dude-centric. From the often male-heavy grandaddy of American touring festivals, Lollapalooza, to the jammy H.O.R.D.E. outing, the hip-hop-focused Smokin\u2019 Grooves and testosterone-charged OzzFest, there were often few slots available for female-fronted acts.<\/p>\n

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\n\tMcLachlan flipped that script by launching Lilith, whose first iteration featured a rotating roster of incredible acts including Fiona Apple, The Cardigans, Tracy Chapman, Paula Cole, Sheryl Crow, Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Jewel, Dido, Pat Benatar, Beth Orton and many more on three stages.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis was the first time you\u2019d see anything like it,\u201d Crow can be heard in voiceover at the top of the two-and-a-half minute trailer for Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery \u2013 The Untold Story, the documentary that will drop on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ on Sept. 21. Featuring archival footage and new interviews, the film will chronicle the birth and success of the joyful gathering that made history thanks to an all-female-focused lineup on the initial 35-date outing that raked in $16 million, making it 1997\u2019s top-grossing U.S. festival tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFinding out that all my favorite artists had played at this event I was in disbelief that I\u2019d never heard of it before,\u201d says Olivia Rodrigo, who was born six years after the first Lilith outing and is among the new generation of artists who pay homage to their festival foremothers in the trailer. \u201cWomen singer-songwriters of the \u201990s, I\u2019m constantly look to them for inspiration,\u201d Rodrigo adds over footage of her jamming with Crow. \u201cThey\u2019re my northern stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcLachlan recalls the pushback she got from promoters at the time, who told her \u201c\u2018you can\u2019t put two women on the same bill, people won\u2019t come,’\u201d a macho stance that she gleefully proved wrong over the course of that summer. \u201cThat\u2019s complete bulls\u2013t, and it put a huge fire under my butt to prove them wrong,\u201d she says in the trailer that also details the anger from some religious leaders over the biblically-inspired name and bomb threats that attempted to derail the juggernaut. <\/p>\n

\n\tCrow adds, \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a lot of support for women. We weren\u2019t able to do what it was we knew we could do.\u201d Getting emotional at the memory of it all, former 10,000 Maniacs singer Natalie Merchant says through happy tears, \u201cI\u2019ve waited my whole life for this\u2026 is this the camera I look into when I cry?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLilith returned in 1998 for another successful run, with McLachlan performing alongside Raitt, Cowboy Junkies, Des\u2019ree, Erykah Badu, Joan Osborne, Lisa Loeb, Liz Phair, Sinead O\u2019Connor, Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Neneh Cherry, Lucinda Williams and many more. After a 1999 outing Lilith called it a day until a star-crossed 2010 revival featuring Brandi Carlile, Cat Power, Heart, Janella Monae, Mary J. Blige, Tegan and Sara and others that fizzled out after a dozen or so dates due to poor ticket sales, forcing the cancellation of 13 shows. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe film directed by Ally Pankiw and inspired by a 2019 Vanity Fair oral history of the festival will contain interviews with a number of the acts who performed on Lilith in its heyday, including Raitt, Badu, Cole, Jewel, Phair, Mya, Indigo Girls, Harris and more. <\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the trailer for Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery \u2014\u00a0The Untold Story below.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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