Sad news music fans … Lilith Fair creator Sarah McLachlan has decreed that the music fest is done … dunzo … over. In a new interview with Sarah Mc conducted in Calgary, Alberta, the Lilith founder has revealed that there will be no more Lilith Fair festivals in the future … and, in retrospect, last year’s attempt to revive the fest was just a really bad idea. Read on to hear about the death of Lilith Fair from Sarah McLachlan herself.
Despite assurances last summer that Lilith would return – even as attendance was tanking and shows were being cancelled – Sarah McLachlan now says she will not revive her all-female music festival. “It’s done,” McLachlan said in Calgary on Sunday. “And that’s okay. It’s actually a really good thing. “[It’s] about learning more from our failures than our successes, and it was a beautiful organic event that happened at a point in time when it was really needed. And bringing the same thing back last year really didn’t make any sense, in retrospect, without due diligence being done on how women have changed. Because in 12 years, women have changed a lot. Their expectations have changed, the way they view the world has changed, and that was not taken into consideration, which I blame myself for.” Between 1997 and 1999, Lilith Fair toured North America with a rotating roster of female artists or female-led bands including Sheryl Crow, the Pretenders and the Dixie Chicks – with McLachlan headlining. A critical and commercial success, the tour repeatedly packed houses and raised millions for women’s charities. In 2009, organizers announced with great fanfare that the tour would return in 2010, rebranded simply as Lilith. But ticket sales were sluggish and multiple dates were cancelled or moved to smaller venues. On Canada Day, as the tour hit West Vancouver’s Ambleside Park, not far from McLachlan’s home, organizers announced the cancellation of 10 shows. “It sucks,” Ms. McLachlan said during a backstage press conference at the time. But when asked, she insisted the tour would be back. “Yep,” she said. “And you can spell that y-e-p,” added Crow, sitting beside her. But in Calgary on Sunday, McLachlan was singing a different tune. “It lived in a time and place and it probably should have stayed there,” she said. “And that’s okay. I learned that. And I’m just excited about looking forward and thinking of carrying forth the ideas from Lilith and maybe doing something new and different.”In the late 90′s, Lilith Fair really was a very special and spectacular thing. I was hoping that the revival last year would bring back some of that magic that has been missing in music for the past 12 years … apparently the concert-going audience wasn’t interested. It really does “suck”, as Sarah herself says, because I really loved Lilith Fair. It is truly the end of an era to think that Lilith will be no more. I will miss the festival and sadly mourn it’s demise :( Let’s pour one out for dearly departed Lilith Fair, shall we?
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