For three magical summers between 1997 and 1999, the women’s festival known as Lilith Fair was a touring caravan of musicians, feminist activists and organizers that carried the message of women’s empowerment across North America.
In the 2025 Hulu documentary “Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery,” Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan said she founded the festival in reaction to male music executives, who argued that a tour with two women on the bill wouldn’t sell tickets. Despite getting commercially successful acts like Sheryl Crow, Jewel and Paula Cole on board, the backlash was fierce: Macho radio jockeys and female critics alike wrote off the festival, and in 1998 organizers received a bomb threat for allowing Planned Parenthood to table at the fest.
When Vulture asked McLachlan if she would bring Lilith Fair back to life, she said: “I’m happy to offer my advice if I can, if I’m asked. But the younger generation needs to carry it forward now.”
It was 23-year-old pop superstar Olivia Rodrigo, a fiercely pro-choice advocate, who answered the call.
Galvanized by the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that eliminated federal abortion rights, among other attacks on healthcare, education and workplace protections by the Trump administration, Rodrigo founded the one-day women’s festival, Daisy Chain Fields — which kicked off Saturday afternoon at Great Park in Irvine. On the poster, the multi-genre, multigenerational lineup was organized not by popularity, but by the alphabetical order of artists’ names: among them Bikini Kill, Chappell Roan, Doechii and Garbage.
Decked in flowers and art by women like Jenny Holzer, the Guerrilla Girls and Ilse Valfré, the festival counted 45,000 attendees and $10 million in donations for various nonprofits working to benefit the rights and lives of women and children, including Planned Parenthood, Baby2Baby and the National Women’s Law Center. With a match from philanthropist Melinda French Gates, the total proceeds amounted to $20 million.
“Without Lilith Fair there would be no Daisy Chain,” said Olivia Rodrigo, who beckoned McLachlan to the stage Saturday night to perform her 1997 hit, “Building a Mystery.”
The Times interviewed moms (and one really cool aunt) who attended the original Lilith Fair — and the kids in their lives — who now count themselves among the Daisy Chain generation.
WendyJade and Keana
After losing the mad dash to purchase Daisy Chain tickets online, WendyJade Hernandez won tickets from Etsy after she bought her niece, Keana, a miniature set from the music video for Olivia Rodrigo’s “The Cure” — a collaboration with the crafty e-commerce website.
Keana, 12, was stoked to see Rodrigo, of course, but also Garbage. “I think it’s really amazing how this group of women and creative artists got together,” she said.
“When I attended Lilith Fair, I had more rights as a woman than my niece does now,” said Hernandez. In 1998, she was a biology student at Harvard when she played hooky from the lab to catch McLachlan and the gang in Mansfield, Mass.
“I got into Harvard with grants for women and minorities in science,” said Hernandez, who later earned a PhD in biological sciences in public health. “Now, all that’s being defunded. The dollars for healthcare research? Dollars for USAID? Gone!”
For Hernandez, music festivals like Daisy Chain are essential vehicles for raising awareness — and urgency — among young people to take action against the mass rollback of their rights. She said that festivalgoers may be surprised to find that they will someday need help from the same nonprofits they donated to.
“Lilith Fair [supported] the Breast Cancer Fund in 1998,” said Hernandez. “I donated $5 back then to enter a Volkswagen Bug giveaway — but then in 2008, realized I had Stage 3 breast cancer. I enrolled in several clinical trials supported by the fund. An all-women festival lineup benefited a women’s health fund, which I’d later benefit from. Women [are] looking out for future fellow sisters in need.”
Heather and Fairlee
Heather Clendenin LeMoine, 49, attended the 1998 edition of Lilith Fair with her mom in Virginia Beach. As a Gen Xer, she admits she felt skeptical at the time of anything remotely popular or mainstream; she left Lilith Fair singing a different tune.
“I was 20 years old, producing indie music shows at my college,” said LeMoine. “Neutral Milk Hotel came out with an album that year! So Lilith Fair was not something I would have done if my mom hadn’t bought tickets. But I was completely electrified [to see] Natalie Merchant — also Missy Elliott in her silver suit.
“It didn’t feel cool to go with my mom,” she added. “But now that I’m a parent, I realize how special it was.”
LeMoine purchased Daisy Chain Fields tickets as a gift to her daughter, Fairlee, who just turned 9. “She’s in love with Olivia Rodrigo,” said Le Moine of her daughter. “Just seeing her light up and sit in the back of the car singing… ‘You betrayed me!’ I have to believe my mom felt the same way when she saw me.”
At the festival, Fairlee was indeed laser-focused on getting to Rodrigo’s set — but she also enjoyed Santigold’s live grooves. They made time between the Bikini Kill and Garbage sets to hop on the carousel, which festivalgoers of all ages rode with childlike whimsy.
“The world we want for young women and girls is one where we can support each other, the rules be damned,” said LeMoine. “We can imagine things into existence. And we can get through hard times together. This is a really dark time to be a woman. This joyfulness kind of flies in the face of what a lot of people don’t want us to experience right now.”
Michele and Violet
Michele McPhail attended the first Lilith Fair with her friends in 1997 — not for the sake of women’s lib, but to get over a guy. “That little s— cheated on me, you know?” McPhail said with a laugh. “So I wanted to see Jewel, I loved ‘Foolish Games.’ Lilith Fair was the awesome thing to do with your friends; it’s what everybody was talking about back then.”
McPhail flew in from Minneapolis with her 16-year-old daughter, Violet. “She knows some of the music from my generation better than I know some of the music from my generation,” said McPhail. “It’s important for me to let her see women supporting women, and trans people too. It just feels safe and warm and loving, even though it’s sweltering and we’re amongst a bunch of strangers.”
As a musical theater student, Violet was most stoked to see Chappell Roan’s operatic rock show — “we really need a ‘Femininomenon,’” she said, citing Roan’s hit song from 2022, which combines “feminine” and “phenomenon.” But she was still buzzing with adrenaline from Bikini Kill’s riotous act just minutes before. “Apart from the music, I just think it’s a really beautiful way to kind of show young people still care, as much as the other generations did, about the world,” Violet said.
“People will say kids these days don’t care about anything, they’re not passionate about anything, they’re not voting enough,” McPhail said. “And I remember them saying that when I was young too!”
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