Lilith Fair Documentary Coming to Hulu and Disney+

It was a great decade for music festivals. If you were old enough in the nineties to experience or remember them all, you know it was a magical time for music.

In the early part of the decade, Lollapalooza began. It was a great mix of alt-rock, hip-hop, and punk.  The nineties also saw two more versions of Woodstock, an Ozzfest, and the HorDe tour.

And then in 1997, it was the birth of a tour featuring exclusively female artists. The Lilith Fair is an all-female tour co-founded by Sarah McLachlan.

Lilith Fair’s first show was in the summer of '97, and was a huge success. The tour grossed over $16 million and featured the top female artists of the time.

There was Sarah, Fiona Apple, Paula Cole, Sheryl Crow, Erykah Badu, Jewel, Sinead O’Connor, Tracy Chapman, and a couple of my favorites, Indigo Girls and Shawn Colvin.

They were all packed into the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, on July 27^th. It's the first time we've ever seen anything like it.

Now, the trailer for the new Lilith Fair documentary on Hulu and Disney+ has been released. Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery - The Untold Story will hit the streaming platforms on Sunday, September 21^st.

In the trailer, we see Olivia Rodrigo lose her mind when she learns that Lilith Fair existed. She found out for the first time that there had been an all-female touring festival in the '90s. Olivia was amazed that all her favorite artists had played at the event. "Women singer/songwriters of the '90s, I'm constantly looking to them for inspiration. They're my Northern stars." She would have loved to be around for it, but she had not been born yet.

Lilith Fair co-founder Sarah McLachlan talks about the reason and inspiration for creating an all-female festival. She shared, "Promoters said, ‘You can't put two women on the same bill. People won't come.'" After hearing that, she decided that her goal was to prove them all wrong. She did just that in a big way.

Sheryl Crow says in the trailer, "There wasn't a lot of support for women, we weren't able to do what we knew we could do."

Looking back, Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls said, “The representation of women in rock music wasn’t there.”

Jewel talks about the summer festivals being male-dominated and "Lilith became a freight train, and it took on a life of its own."

Natalie Merchant said she waited her whole life for this.

Sarah continued, “If you stand up for something, there’s going to be an equal and opposite reaction.” Lilith Fair saw a response in the form of bomb threats and criticism.

The film also includes  Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Meredith Brooks, Brandi Carlile, and so many more female rock stars. The trailer is amazing, and I am looking forward to checking out the doc as soon as it’s released.

Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery - The Untold Story premieres on Hulu and Disney+ on Sunday, Sept. 21^st.