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Fair's fare

Traditional roles rule Lilith

by Matt Ashare

It has emerged as the Big Idea of this summer -- and it is a great idea. In a decade that's seen women dominate rock and pop as never before, it's about time someone threw a party to celebrate. Hell, a little gloating would even be in order. And so, after years of confronting regressive radio programmers and concert promoters who clung to the belief that no one would accept two or more female artists on the same bill, or more than a token few women's voices in heavy radio rotation, Canadian songstress Sarah McLachlan just did it. She put together Lilith Fair, a Lollapalooza-style multi-stage touring festival spotlighting women -- Gynopalooza, as one of my female friends refers to it.

But even before Lilith arrived at a sold-out Great Woods on Tuesday (July 22), it seemed as if McLachlan herself might be suffering from a mild case of narrow vision. The main stage line-up of McLachlan, Tracy Chapman, the Cardigans, Fiona Apple, and Paula Cole was weighted so heavily in favor of one type of female performer that mainstream media outlets like Time were finding it easy, way too easy, to fall back on the clichéd image of women as the sensitive, introspective gentler souls in the rough-and-tumble man's world of rock and roll. After so many women in rock (Hole's Courtney Love, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, the Breeder's Kim Deal, Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hannah, Babes in Toyland, L7, Liz Phair, Team Dresch, Sleater-Kinney, ani di franco -- even Alanis Morissette) have successfully challenged those stereotypes, that is a resounding disappointment.

Nevertheless, commercially, Lilith was a big success. And nothing speaks louder to the music business than the sound of 20,000 consumers screaming for more. The consumers in question were, as expected, predominantly female -- back in the press trailer we agreed on a female-to-male ratio of two or three to one. Several men's rooms were converted to women's lavatories for the occasion, and the booths lining the walkway inside the venue were (wo)manned by groups like RAINN (Rape Abuse and Incest National Network). I also couldn't help noticing that there was a prefab Nine West shoe store nestled in there, raffling off a free pair of shoes.

Backstage, though, performers would have needed more toilet accommodations for men. Even counting Juliana Hatfield twice (because she played an opening solo set on the tiny Village Stage before joining her band on the second stage for a rousing half-hour), there were still more than twice as many male performers as women (30 to 13 by my count -- which figures in all the non-main-stage acts, including Alisha's Attic, Lori Carson, Autour de Lucie, and Victoria Williams).

Of course, those numbers have nothing to do with the quality of the performances, which were mostly good. The second stage, which was situated up in the half-sand/half-lawn general-admission section and had sets scheduled so as not to conflict with the main stage (a great idea), opened with a tuneful 20 minutes by the French indie-rock foursome Autour de Lucie, whose homonymous Nettwork debut is worth seeking out for its mix of sultry vocals and scruffy guitars. Victoria Williams, who alternately played piano, banjo, and electric guitar, delivered a haunting set full of fragile, quavering vocals with spare, rootsy mandolin, violin, and bass accompaniment. And, sandwiched between overwrought main-stage sets by Paula Cole and Fiona Apple, Hatfield and her band provided a welcome dose of gritty guitar pop and down-to-earth rock-and-roll charm. Their fitting cover of X's stormy "The Unheard Music" reminded some of us that there's a new breed of women in rock out there, women who weren't heard on the main stage.

Instead we got Cole and Apple, both of whom played into the stereotype of women on the edge of a nervous breakdown. They over-emoted to a fault and failed to balance the pretentious narcissism of their material with even a hint of self-aware humor. (Apple's perennially bare midriff can be read as a metaphor for her obsessive navel gazing.) Nina Persson, the suave blond singer for Sweden's Cardigans, turned the tide back toward a more dignified feminine mythos, that of the refined starlet/object of desire. Her torch-singer poise carried with it a knowing sense of irony that was as refreshing as her band's breezy, angst-free pop stylings. And both Chapman and McLachlan, whose sets were peppered with relatively hard-rocking peaks, used their strong voices to prove (or remind us) that the confessional songwriting Cole and Apple aspire to doesn't have to come off as cloying or overly indulgent.

So it wasn't rock that was missing from Lilith, but something less tangible: specifically, evidence that women have moved beyond their traditional roles fronting all-male bands and/or doing the singer/songwriter thing. It was as if someone had held a career seminar for women and invited only teachers, nurses, and secretaries to speak. Construction worker, homicide detective, heart surgeon, lead guitarist, drummer -- those are jobs, unlike singer/songwriter, that women haven't always had access to. It would have been nice if Lilith had done more to reflect the qualitative progress that women have made in the realm of rock over the past few years. That would have turned McLachlan's Big Idea into a great one.