|
|
| Author |
Message |
dang
|
|
Lilith Fair.
| 
Jul 24 03:42 UTC 1997 |
Well, I went to Lilith Fair, and Ken asked me to post something about it here
in music, so I add yet another .cf file to my fast growing list of conferences
I've joined. :) This, then, would be the Lilith Fair item. First off, I
loved the concert. I'm a fairly major Sarah McLachlan fan, a semi-major Paula
Cole fan, and I like both Fiona Apple and the Cardigans. (Those were the
headliners or mainstagers, along with someone else who I'd never heard of and
don't remember. I'm sure someone will supply it.) Unfortunately, We didn't
figure out until too late where the other stages were, so we missed all of
the village and B stage acts. Too bad, I really wanted to see them. Well,
such is life. On to the main stage. First the confirmation of the big news:
Sarah is indeed married, to her drummer. I'm bad with name, so I don't know
his. The performances were very good, and I really enjoyed the evening.
Fiona's stuff I didn't know very well, except for Shadow Boxer, but it was
great. As a neat twist, the rest of her band (all men) wore dresses in the
spirit of Lilith Fair. I thought that was a great idea. The Cardigans didn't
wear dresses, any of them, but were just as enjoyable. I think I'll buy an
album of theirs. This was my third time seeing Paula. I saw her open for
Sarah last summer, and I went to see her at Clutch Cargo a few months ago.
She was great as always. She didn't use the mask for Cowboys, which I was
a bit disappointed to see, because that was a great effect, but she was great
none the less. Unfortunately for all of them, they had rather short sets.
Sarah's was the longest at 50 minutes. Still, that allowed for their best
songs, and none of the ones I didn't like. :) Sarah, much to my surprise,
didn't play the piano at all. She had a piano player, quite good I might add,
who wasn't with her last time I saw her, and he played for her. I think it
allowed her to pay more attention to her singing. Also, she did slightly
different versions of many of the songs. It made it a bit hard to sing along,
but was a great change from the sameness of the recordings. I think it was
a very good idea. Just like last summer, I think she stole the show. She
was far and away the best performer of them all, although it's debatable if
she's the best musician. (I won't debate here. :) One thing I would have
liked to see, which they didn't do, was to have the final song be a group
effort with all of the mainstagers there. Instead, it was just Sarah. I'm
not complaining, but I think it would have been a great closing to the Lilith
message. As for the general atmosphere of Lilith Fair, there was a higher
percentage of women there than at the Sarah concert. That's not surprising,
as I know several guys who wouldn't go, calling it a "chick concert."
However, everyone had a great time, as far as I could tell, and I got a really
neat teeshirt. On the whole, it was a big success.
|
| 35 responses total. |
senna
|
|
response 1 of 35:
|
Jul 24 22:02 UTC 1997 |
The paper made a note that only one of the mainstagers even had a female
backing musician. They weren't too happy about it. The other mainstager was
Tracy Bonham, who had a fair hit with "Mother Mother" last year.
|
dang
|
|
response 2 of 35:
|
Jul 24 22:19 UTC 1997 |
That's the one I couldn't remember. :) However, even if all of the musicians
were men, all of the singers were women, and I think that was more the point.
As I said, several of the mainstagers didn't even have the same bands as last
year.
|
krj
|
|
response 3 of 35:
|
Jul 25 04:16 UTC 1997 |
Thanks for starting this off, dang!
Could you elaborate a bit more on the physical setup?
Was this at Pine Knob? I have never been to a festival-type show at
one of the "sheds," so I'm not sure about where the
side stages would be.
About the short sets: alas, that comes with the festival format.
Philadelphia Folk Festival sets run between 20 and 50 minutes, depending
on how big a name you are. Dar Williams only got 20 minutes at Philadelphia
last year, and my friend Sherlyn who had come all the way from Australia,
and who is a major Dar worshipper, was outraged.
It's been fun watching the cycle get to this point. We had a similar
buildup for women performers back around 1987, when Suzanne Vega,
Tracy Chapman and Sinead O'Connor all appeared at about the same time.
I hang out in a couple of IRC channels which are officially devoted to
women performers (#indigo-girls, and the hazy #ecto universe)
and I didn't understand what people were talking about when they started
discussing Lilith Fair a few months ago. And then suddenly, Bang, Zoom,
major cover stories in EW, Tower's Pulse, CMJ, and big features
in Time and Newsweek. It's like women are a planet that's being
rediscovered, like Mars.
|
dang
|
|
response 4 of 35:
|
Jul 28 02:57 UTC 1997 |
Yes, it was at Pine Knob. The mainstage was the mainstage. They had a little
one person stage, called the Village stage, back by one of the entrances
(sadly, not the one we came in) and they had a larger stage, called the B
stage, back in the corner in a concession area.
|
krj
|
|
response 5 of 35:
|
Dec 3 22:47 UTC 1997 |
From a mid-November mailout from the Nettwerk record label.
I'm assuming this is a CBC-TV program. CBC-TV is carried on the
Ann Arbor cable system and is probably available to most people
in metro Detroit.
>And finally, for those of you in Canada, the Lilith Fair one-hour special
>called 'Lilith Fair: Sarah McLachlan & Friends' will be broadcast on
>*Friday, December 5th* on CBC. Airing time is set at 9pm Eastern Time, but
>check local listings for details as usual.
|
bruin
|
|
response 6 of 35:
|
Dec 4 00:19 UTC 1997 |
RE #5 CBC in Windsor, Ontario, is Channel 9 (Channel 21 on Media One in Ann
Arbor and Ypsilanti).
|
mcnally
|
|
response 7 of 35:
|
Dec 4 05:30 UTC 1997 |
Even if you don't have cable I find CBC/Windsor 9 comes in fairly well
here in Ann Arbor (though I live on a hill, so YMMV..)
|
lumen
|
|
response 8 of 35:
|
Dec 5 02:06 UTC 1997 |
VH-1 recently had a "Behind the Music" special on how the Lilith Fair was
started.
|
krj
|
|
response 9 of 35:
|
Dec 6 05:28 UTC 1997 |
((Darn, I forgot to set up the VCR and I didn't get home until late.
Did anyone see this?))
|
scott
|
|
response 10 of 35:
|
Dec 6 13:38 UTC 1997 |
I did. Just highlights, as you would expect from an hour show. Good
performances, but not my favorite genre of music.
|
lumen
|
|
response 11 of 35:
|
Dec 7 00:16 UTC 1997 |
Not really my favorite genre of music, either, but it's the trend.
|
eeyore
|
|
response 12 of 35:
|
Dec 16 06:47 UTC 1997 |
Well, Iwas at the concert with dan, so I'll stick in my two cents worth a few
months too late. :)
I was extremely dissappointed with the fact that Sarah didn't play
piano...That's half of the fun of going to see her perform....and her guitar
was all rather half-hearted...nothing all that grand. And while the singing
was good, it didn't make up for, at all I thnkg, the fact that she didn't play
the piaon.
I was really dissappointed that Dar wasn't at this show...oh well...next time
maybe. :)
If it's a concert celebrating females in music, then why were all of the
backkup ands male? I know that Sarah's and Paula's were their normal bands,
but....
Paula was excellent...It's cool because I've seen here in every Detroit -area
concer that she's had so far....and it's been fun to watch her grow....she's
certainly not as shy and timid as she was before.
Tracey Bohnam needed help picking out her clothes...they were pretty awful.
I was, however amused with Fiona's style....the guys in dresses made sense
to me, and her "say yes to Michigan" bumper sticker plasterd to her butt made
me giggle a bit.
I saw a few miutes of Holly Cole...and now that I have her latest album,
wished that I had stayed to see more.
|
lumen
|
|
response 13 of 35:
|
Dec 17 05:18 UTC 1997 |
It's funny, but you don't see folk singers playing the piano much. It seems
even less so these days.
I do know what you meant by Sarah McLaughlin's ability to play the piano--
I remember her performance for MTV live.
I would note that most backup singers have been female-- were they trying to
make a statement having male backup singers? Perhaps the emphasis was not
so much a celebration of female singers exclusively, but a celebration of
female singers taking center stage-- leaving the guys on the back burner for
a change :)
Did Pat Benetar play this one? I saw some MTV coverage of her in the Fair.
Eeeeecck. She's dyed her hair blond, and she had it in pigtails (c'mon,
that's a look she's too old and mature for). I was also sorry to see her
bow to the folk trend and play something folky. Perhaps a change of pace
was needed, but I thought she could have done better. She was a true
revolutionary when she was popular-- she paved the way. Oh well. It's
amazing how many lemmings are made even in an alternative world.
|
orinoco
|
|
response 14 of 35:
|
Dec 17 23:27 UTC 1997 |
I can think of mixed-sex bands, but the only ones that come to mind have a
female lead singer and a male
|
mcnally
|
|
response 15 of 35:
|
Dec 18 17:26 UTC 1997 |
There have been a few famous bands with one or more female members but
a male lead vocalist (for example, the Velvet Underground..) but you're
right that in mixed-sex musical groups one of the women is usually the
vocalist..
|
lumen
|
|
response 16 of 35:
|
Dec 19 09:32 UTC 1997 |
People like to see women as the vocalists, I guess. I'd bet it could be a
ploy-- they can invest appeal in the female vocalist. Just a thought
|
orinoco
|
|
response 17 of 35:
|
Dec 20 04:12 UTC 1997 |
Female vocalist and male vocalist are different 'instruments', though, while
male and female bassists, say, are playing the same instrument.
|
lumen
|
|
response 18 of 35:
|
Dec 21 09:49 UTC 1997 |
Very good point. The voices of each gender have different timbres, even
when they're singing in the same range.
(But then there's electronic manipulation-- what about Whitetown?)
|
orinoco
|
|
response 19 of 35:
|
Dec 22 17:33 UTC 1997 |
'What about Whitetown?'
|
lumen
|
|
response 20 of 35:
|
Dec 26 01:58 UTC 1997 |
The lead singer of Whitetown (I believe this is a one-woman band, right?)
is female, as you know-- but the way her voice is recorded, it doesn't sound
like it..it's kinda funky, y'know?
|
orinoco
|
|
response 21 of 35:
|
Dec 26 03:36 UTC 1997 |
Yeah, but I wasn't aware that was a trick in the recording - listen to Sweet
Honey in the Rock's female bass vocalist, for instance. I figured she just
had an unusually low voice.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 22 of 35:
|
Dec 26 06:26 UTC 1997 |
Hmmm.. I could've sworn I heard an interview with the *guy* who's
the one behind the name "White Town" on the radio the other day..
Are you confident about #20?
|
robh
|
|
response 23 of 35:
|
Dec 26 12:25 UTC 1997 |
Last tie I saw the video for "Your Woman", the singer for
White Town sure looked like a guy. He did have a female singer
help out on a few songs on that album, though.
Or maybe it's like "The Crying Game"? >8)
|
lumen
|
|
response 24 of 35:
|
Dec 27 03:27 UTC 1997 |
That's got to be the mystique, I guess. No, I'm not confident. That's
interesting..the album is titled _Women In Technology._ Perhaps this
confirms the idea that women would rather play folk for a band than synth?
|