Once upon a time, from the years 1997 to 1999, the rock world witnessed an explosion of exclusively female talent called the Lilith Fair, a traveling music festival put together by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan.
This documentary feature, ‘Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery’ on Disney+, directed by her fellow Canuck Ally Pankiw, extracts from over 600 hours of never-before-seen footage and features numerous interviews to capture the heady, joyous, and congenial outdoor atmosphere of those Fair days, as well as the toxic male-dominated showbiz culture that prompted its creation. It can perhaps be described as musical woman power at its non-combative best. One of the Fair’s artists calls it ‘the best drug in the world.’
The performers featured, either in interviews or snippets of performances or both, include Liz Phair, Erykah Badu, Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, Sinead O’ Connor, Emmylou Harris, Chrissie Hynde, Natalie Merchant, the Indigo Girls, Missy Elliott, Jewel, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Osborne, Paula Cole, Queen Latifah, and Christina Aguilera, to name just a few.
The documentary highlights the suffering and harassment undergone by female artists from brickbats, snide remarks, and at times, physical assault by a heavily sexist, testosterone-ruled mainstream media, with the likes of Bill Maher, shock jock Howard Stern, Jerry Springer’s tabloid TV show, Time Magazine, David Letterman, Jay Leno, and even Beavis and Butthead cited as offenders in clips and comments.
Madonna gets a mention from Vega. ‘In the 80s, she used sex to sell records. That was her empowerment message, which was great for her, but it was not something that I was going to do.’ Vega says she was being pressured to be more like Madonna, but she preferred to ‘cover up’ and allow listeners to focus on her face, hands, and song lyrics.
McLachlan recalls a childhood where she was not allowed to open her mouth and say anything, what with an ‘incredibly strict’ mother who never let her out of the house, grounded her for the ‘tiniest of infractions,’ and remarked that if Sarah ever joined a band, ‘you’re gonna fail.’ Sarah backhandedly credited her mom, who, by telling her she wasn’t good enough, in effect motivated her to prove otherwise.
Everyone will have his or her favorite performances from the docu, although none of them are aired in their entirety, perhaps not to show any favoritism. My personal faves include: the Indigo Girls rendering the vigorous ‘Closer to Fire’ complete with yodeling; Vega engaging the crowd to clap along to her introspective a cappella ditty ‘Tom’s Diner’; the statuesque Badu chilling out her audience with a ‘cup of tea’ in the cool ‘On and On’; Chapman unleashing her deep-voiced desire in ‘Baby Can I Hold You’; and the artists briefly jamming and rehearsing backstage to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi.’
As the Lilith Fair progresses, the events and their performers are hardly spared by the misogynistic press. The Fair is called names like ‘vulva-palooza’ and ‘lesbian-palooza.’ In its initial year, it was also called the ‘Lily-white Fair’ for not featuring non-white artists, although the festival eventually invited black artists like Erykah Badu and Tracy Chapman, the latter now considered the festival’s most popular performer. Cole gets blasted and mocked by critics and talk show hosts for not shaving her armpits in a performance.
O’ Connor, who died in 2023, is shown here calling Lilith Fair ‘a healing experience.’ Publicly lambasted for tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II, an incident no self-respecting Catholic surely could not help but condemn, she is able to find solace in the Fair.
Inclusiveness emerges as a major theme here as testimonials from LGBTQ audiences focus on their Lilith festival experience as a venue for being themselves in a happy and fun ambiance. But apparently, for McLachlan and her ilk, feminist inclusiveness has its limits. It’s admitted that ‘Lilith Fair was very much pro-choice.’
Sarah shows a clear double standard by allowing the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood organization to put up a booth in the concert, but in a seeming display of hypocrisy, forbids a pro-life group, Feminists for Life, from doing the same. This would have been ‘politically correct’ during the liberal-minded time period covered, the reign of Democratic President Bill Clinton. However, given that this docu was released in 2025, at a time where the government has defunded PP and the Supreme Court no longer recognizes abortion as a right, the film fails to place this issue in its present context; instead we get a lame, dismissive and intolerant explanation from Sarah that ‘this is my festival, so I can do what I want.’
After this, the docu also makes mention of the claim of Jerry Falwell, televangelist and publisher of the newspaper The National Liberty Journal, that Lilith, the mythical woman that the Fair was named after, was a ‘demon,’ thus opening up another can of worms. While the docu does mention early on the legend that Lilith was Adam’s supposed first wife prior to Eve, it skips over the fact that she was also indeed considered a demon in Jewish lore. So this Lilith Fair actually has. demonic roots?
These belatedly inserted issues threaten to nearly ruin the cheery vibe that the docu had established up to this point; still, the film soldiers on, leading the narrative to the Fair’s eventual decline and trying to persuade the viewers to mourn its passing.
Overall, ‘Lilith Fair’ is still able to make its mark as an adventurous and nostalgic feminist vehicle and solid pop entertainment that may still work for many audiences; just try to ignore the annoying occasional leftward detours into what is now recognized as 21st-century wokeness and you’ll be fine. I guess.
‘Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery’ is now streaming on Disney+. Running time: 1 hour and 39 minutes. Rating 4 out of 5 stars.