 
|
|||||||||||
              
|
McLachlan leads Lilith Fair into harmonized styles Music Review Monday, August 10, 1998 By John Young
It's her party, and she'll sing if she wants to.
Sarah McLachlan sang often and sang well yesterday as she brought the second edition of the Lilith Fair to Coca Cola Star Lake Amphitheatre. Unlike last year, the festival celebrating women in music featured no chart-busting phenom such as Jewel, no big pop-rocker such as Sheryl Crow. Pittsburgh also missed out on the likes of Liz Phair, Lauryn Hill and Neneh Cherry who've played other Lilith dates this summer. Still, this more eclectic, less commercial lineup of artists delivered good fun and positive vibes for more than seven hours.
McLachlan, the festival's creator, experienced much of the show first-hand. She and a group of many of the day's vocalists joined Chantal Kreviazuk for a piano-fueled take of "Leaving On A Jet Plane." She also sang with N'Dea Davenport on a Brand New Heavies tune. McLachlan was all laughs and smiles contributing high, distinctive harmonies to the songs.
It's hard to imagine, given all the airplay McLachlan's "Surfacing" album has received from mainstream radio in the past year, but the headliner had little more than a grass-roots fan base at the beginning of last summer's Lilith Fair. The show's headliner seemed to enjoy playing a set spiked with hits such as "Sweet Surrender" and "Building A Mystery" and having the crowd erupt in vocal recognition. McLachlan chatted easily with the audience and got an especially big reaction for "Ice Cream" on a muggy, hot night.
While McLachlan has never claimed that a Lilith line-up represents the whole of musical styles, the show was quite wide-ranging. Letters To Cleo turned up the volume for a buzzing six-song set of melodic guitar rock. "Here And Now" and the delightfully improper "Let's Get High" jump-started the proceedings for those who arrived early.
At the other end of the spectrum, Bic Runga was barely audible over a power generator that was near the "village stage." Quiet, even by sensitive singer/songwriter standards, Runga's strummy fare blew away in the wind without making much of an impact.
Also performing on one of the two side stages, Victoria Williams presented the most challenging and surprising set of the day. So naked in her emotion, so idiosyncratic in her child-like singing style, Williams was difficult to watch at times. Nevertheless, her sometimes-ragged, sometimes-excellent hootenanny of a show was nothing short of compelling. One of the tightest tunes was one that a fan requested ("You Are Loved"), while "Nature Boy" was a wild, almost arrhythmic, oddity.
Many acts on the bill blurred musical lines, the latest Lilith largely eschewing a "one from each genre" sensibility. Luscious Jackson blended funk, rap, pop and dance music on the main stage as the group inspired many of the 14,962 in attendance to sway, shake and pogo. The fair also continued the trend of including guest appearances in the show. Davenport sang wordlessly to "City Song" while Emmylou Harris handled the vocal harmonies of the band's rare, lush ballad "Why Do I Lie."
Harris' deeply compelling set drew from country, folk and rock traditions. Earnest without being self-righteous, atmospheric without being gratuitously pretty, Harris' songs soared on her honeyed voice. Her band helped, too, turning "Calling My Children Home" into a brilliant piece of four-part a cappella harmonizing and adding beautiful textures to "Where Will I Be." Between songs, Harris joked about keeping her hair grey and thanked McLachlan for offering her a spot on "the dream gig of a lifetime."
Natalie Merchant ignited the crowd with her appearance, mixing new songs from "Ophelia" with her "Tiger Lily" hits in a well-constructed set. Still, Merchant's onstage antics were as befuddling as ever -- she twirled a pink streamer, wore a Mexican party dress, talked incoherently about Judy Garland and Patti Smith and sang part of a Sunday School gospel song a cappella to no one in particular. Her material was overlong and often overwrought, especially a sluggish take on "Jealousy."
Still, a few mediocre sets do not a day destroy. McLachlan and others built up more than enough good will in establishing Lilith as a vital, changing annual festival worth maintaining. Lilith 1998 lacked many hitmakers but still succeeded artistically.
|
||||||||||
