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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
RE #5 CBC in Windsor, Ontario, is Channel 9 (Channel 21 on Media One in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti).
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..)
VH-1 recently had a "Behind the Music" special on how the Lilith Fair was started.
((Darn, I forgot to set up the VCR and I didn't get home until late. Did anyone see this?))
I did. Just highlights, as you would expect from an hour show. Good performances, but not my favorite genre of music.
Not really my favorite genre of music, either, but it's the trend.
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.
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.
I can think of mixed-sex bands, but the only ones that come to mind have a female lead singer and a male
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..
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
Female vocalist and male vocalist are different 'instruments', though, while male and female bassists, say, are playing the same instrument.
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?)
'What about Whitetown?'
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?
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.
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?
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)
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?
yeah, but the title doesn't mean much.
I guess..
The lead singer for Whitetown is really male. (sigh)
(White Town is a British one-man band consisting of Indian-born Jyoti Mishra. He discussed ways to convert old recording gear into a lo-fi home recording studio, which was the method used to record the album _Women In Technology_, in the 3/15/97 issue of Melody Maker. BTW, White Town was the fourth artist in the history of the British charts to have their first single debut at #1 on the pop chart. Jyoti had actually been making music since 1990, with records being released through Urbana, IL-based Parasol. "Your Woman" was originally released on Parasol as a 7" single. Their remaining stock was bought up by EMI and used for promotional material in the UK.) (The following quote is from a review written by Dave Simpson for The Guardian: "Depending on your take on it, `Your Woman' is either an exercise in role reversal akin to Prince's `If I Was Your Girlfriend' or, equally peculiarly, an unrequited love song to a lesbian Marxist luvvie.") (of course, I'm sure that's WAY more than anyone ever wanted to know about a [currently] one-hit wonder. if not, follow the references.) (POI: The Lilith Fair winter tour is currently underway. as far as the 1998 tour goes, Sarah does not plan to add any male leads to the tour. there will be expansion beyond the woman-with-guitar/pop/folk genre, as Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot and comedian Ana Gasteyer are slated to appear at several dates. Sarah also says that the tour will play some of the same cities that were part of the first tour, but with entirely different acts, the one constant being Sarah.) (there was an excellent episode of VH1's "Behind The Music" that covered the Lilith Fair tour from beginning to middle. I'm not sure when it's showing next, though.)
I saw part of it just a couple of hours ago. It was kind of interesting.
Sarah McLachlan has a gig coming up at Michigan State; hopefully someone will file a report for us!
I've gotten to the point I'm not even interested in seeing her. (sigh)
Did anyone buy the Lilith Fair live CD set?
I took a look at it....there are only 2 songs on it that I'm interested in....
Is there a Lilith Fair tour stop in Detroit this year? Anyone going who's willing to file a report?
see my short reveiw in the live shows item for opinions from Katy - I wasn't too impressed at all.
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