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Well, at least one good thing is coming out of 90s nostalgia. And I’m not talking about Nirvana T-shirts at Forever 21. Lilith Fair is back.
The late-90s lady-centric rock festival founded by Sarah McLachlan is reviving for a 2010 European and Northwestern tour. And while I’m not the biggest fan of McLachlan or many of the other folksy chanteuses that headlined the tours of a decade past, I am a fan of anything that seeks to promote women in music.
Music festivals are still male dominated—just look at this year’s Monolith festival. Of the 16 bands that played on the festival’s main stage, only three had female members.
But rock n roll feminism seems to be trendy again, from riot grrrl fashion spreads in Nylon magazine to re-releases of albums by bands like The Raincoats and Bikini Kill.
In addition to the obligatory headliners of 90s women like Liz Phair and Lisa Loeb the fest is sure to represent, it will be nice if the revived Lilith Fair seeks out more avante-garde artists in punk and noise genres.
Lilith Fair should be confrontational and controversial, like its mythical namesake. It should try to challenge audiences and go beyond the safe, accepted wispy-girl genre. Which, honestly, can be totally boring.
The festival already proved 10 years ago that a fest made up solely of female-fronted acts could be profitable. The challenge it faces now is to prove that it can be artistically challenging, too.
It’s helpful to look back and take the things that worked from the 90s, but if we don’t try to make them better, we’re just regressing.
No decade is perfect, but maybe we can draw inspiration from the past instead of just rehashing a festival that, while groundbreaking, didn’t offer the diversity in sounds it could have. Hopefully this means we can get beyond the rock ladies of the past (as great as they are) and move on to help promote the ones of the future.
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