There were two paths for America and Lilith Fair was one of them. Sadly it chose the other | Emma Brockes

The all-female tour was a counterpoint to the era’s misogyny. We could do with some of that promise today

There’s an argument to be made that the first person in the US to spot the oncoming freight train of the Maga movement – fully 17 years before the first election of Trump – wasn’t a political forecaster or a bearded contrarian but the rock star Sheryl Crow. In 1999, Crow appeared at a press conference backstage at Lilith Fair, the all-women music festival, during which she was asked about a disastrous appearance she had recently made at Woodstock ‘99. This was the Woodstock reboot in upstate New York marred by violence, sexual assault and an angry male crowd that heckled the few female artists present with, “show us your tits.” Crowe, smiling bleakly, said, “I’m hoping it doesn’t represent our future as a nation or the youth of America.”

Well, as they say: ha. Crow’s comments feature in Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery, a new documentary by Ally Pankiw on Disney+ and a mind-blowing introduction to the festival for those of us who missed it. Before seeing Pankiw’s film this week, I had only the vaguest idea of what Lilith Fair was, which for someone who came of age in the 90s makes me both very uncool (what else is new?) and a terrible lesbian (ditto), but isn’t a particularly unusual oversight. Lilith Fair, which at the time won a huge amount of publicity, has in the decades since faded almost entirely from view – and for the uninitiated, it is hard to overstate just how extraordinary, thrilling, genuinely radical and extremely gay the festival, which toured the US for three summers in the late 1990s, appears from this distance. The all-female lineup featured some of the biggest names in music, including Sinéad O’Connor, Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, Fiona Apple, the Indigo Girls and Tracy Chapman, as well as Sheryl Crow, but watching the documentary, the main take away is the alternative version of history it offers – and how agonisingly far it is from where we are now.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

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