Fair game

"They've tried very hard to distance themselves from anything feminist or radical, and that seems kind of shameful to me," she says. "They're afraid of being called ballbusters, and the truth is, they would be called that. They have so much clout, but the industry is so deeply misogynist. This is a little window of time when there's some opportunity for some women, but they're walking pretty darn softly. They got where they are by the good graces of guys who are running the industry, and those good graces will fade if they don't play their cards right."

Besides, Vogel adds, "It's not like they're going, 'We're in reaction to something that's putrid.' It's more like, 'We want to get in on something that's putrid'--kind of like Motown did 20 years ago."

To a certain extent, they are succeeding. A clear-eyed view of Lilith Fair is that it's merely an attempt to consolidate a small cache of power in the touring industry--an attempt that has, at least for the moment, worked. McLachlan's 1997 record Surfacing has just gone triple platinum, no doubt boosted by the extremely high profile that Lilith Fair has given her (particularly in America); and because it has provided a forum for so many artists from so many labels outside the MTV-radio nexus, Lilith is currently the music industry's golden child and is likely to remain so.

Garrison Starr is a case in point. Starr is a new--and female--artist on Geffen who did some Lilith Fair dates last year, in advance of Eighteen Over Me, her major-label debut. Although it's impossible to quantify exactly how helpful it was, Starr's A&R rep, Ray Farrell, thinks that doing Lilith was a good boost to her career.

"We don't do Lilith for record sales," he says. "It's more to do with forging alliances with that audience, and with other artists on the bill--there's a lot of camaraderie backstage, a really good atmosphere."

Like many other A&R people, Farrell took care to get Starr some dates this year, which she will play acoustically, with just a couple of guys from Wilco backing her.

"Last year," he comments, "she had a lot of people crowding around the stage and coming up to her and asking about when her record was coming out and stuff like that. It was good for us to get her in front of that many people--and a lot easier for her than going out and opening for God Street Wine or someone."

The question is, How long will it be before Lilith, like Lollapalooza, exhausts its clientele? McBride thinks it's got a few years in it, in part because of its rotating schedule, which sees headlining acts changing every few nights. Such a schedule allows acts to do their own solo summer tours as well as appearing with Lilith Fair; additionally, by rotating markets, the same artists can go out in different regions year after year. Seventy-five percent of this year's artists played Lilith Fair last year; next year, McBride hopes, 80 percent will return. "By not letting anyone repeat and by using the same bill all summer," explains McBride, "Lollapalooza just narrowed its field of talent too much."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gardner speculates that such thinking will actually be Lilith's downfall.

"This year will be good for them," he says, "but if you keep recycling bands like that, you're going to get pretty stale."

Circumstances are already pointing toward Gardner's conclusion. McBride speculates that next year's Lilith Fair might not feature McLachlan at every date, but that "Ani, Alanis, or Jewel will step to the fore to be its host or leader." But why should they? Although Lilith Fair likes to emphasize the extreme camaraderie of its artists--a camaraderie so great, they imply, that artists prefer playing on it to any other gig--there is no reason to suppose that anything other than self-interest really puts these women together.

Crow, for example, has withdrawn from five dates on this year's Lilith Fair, citing exhaustion. Jewel, probably the biggest act of this type today, is currently filming a movie, but, like Tori Amos and Ani DiFranco--two other artists whose music would fit right into this day's work--she would probably prefer to pocket the entire night's take by touring on her lonesome anyway. There is no question that big artists make less than they would playing their own gig: To be on it is more a matter of, as Ray Farrell says, "forging alliances." Like during wartime, except without the war or the time.

Perhaps the biggest gripe that Lilith's detractors have about the bill is that it merely perpetuates certain institutionalized industry biases about women. Last year's lineup was criticized for being too white and too young and too pretty. This year sees the inclusion of older acts (Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, Cowboy Junkies, Raitt) and many African-American performers (Missy Elliot, Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Neneh Cherry, and Me'Shell Ndegeocello are all main-stagers in various cities).