Complicated. But beautiful.

Lilith is more than music to the ears

One of my favorite things out here on the road with Lilith are the stray comments I overhear. Most don’t get published or tweeted: some things remain sacred.

Others range around in my head on repeat. One of them was about a woman. The words I caught were that she was:

“…Complicated. But beautiful.”

This quote wormed round and round in my brain, my heart. I know I’m not alone as a woman when I say that somehow I got the message over a lifetime (messages?) that I’m too much, I’m not enough, I’m in the way, then not available…Complicated. Too complicated to take seriously, love, keep around. Pick your poison.

I heard, “but beautiful,” and those messages softened, as if my very woman-ness would forgive the “complicated” it presents. From a stray, overheard comment landing at just the right time, I felt let off the hook from having to be perfect, all the time conforming to other people’s standards of me or what a woman should be.

I’d wager to say most women know these voices in the head, or some version of them. In the end we hopefully realize they are not true.

Cultural climate change

“Complicated but beautiful” got me thinking about Lilith and its reemergence after its 11-year hiatus. Lilith media coverage has been less than desireable. The focus has been on flagging ticket sales, and questioning whether female artists need Lilith to get them taken seriously as musicians anymore.

It’s a complicated question. Thirteen years ago, Lilith was a phenomenon that shot through music culture like a breeze through a stuffy room. Everyone migrated to the open window that was Lilith, took in the view, breathed in the fresh air, and saw an entire horizon of new possibilities.

Thirteen years ago, though, was not the economic ice age we’re in now. Nor were there female musicians playing back to back on the radio, let alone on stage.

It’s a new climate. So I’d like to suggest to anyone listening a new set of possibilities, and maybe some different measures of success than low ticket sales in a summer where even bread sales are low.

To borrow from another comment I overheard on the road:

“You can’t always be right. You can, however, make a difference.”

Lilith is a beautiful thing. Without exception, every artist that stands on the stage expresses her excitement at being able to play at Lilith. They each talk about the fun they have playing music—their love and livelihood—together and for this excited crowd, the ease and sisterhood, the learning from each other, and the opportunity these stages provide them. From that context comes this incredible feel-good, can-do-anything vibe to rock OUT on stage.

And rock out they do. In the audience, there are young girls going home with visions of music in their futures. There are giddy concert-goers lit up by new artists they never would have heard had they not come to see their favorite on the bill.

In the village for the pre-shows, there are women and men vibing to new music and the community visibility Lilith brings to campaigns like “i4c a better tomorrow,” The Neufeld Institute, and local charities that receive $1 of ticket sales.

Thanks in part to Lilith past, female artists have made strides that make naysayers doubt the contemporary viability of “A Celebration of Women in Music.” Concert tours across the nation are hit by the reality of a recession no one planned for. But what remains is the music, these kickass crazy good performances pulling together a community of music lovers for a day in each city it sets up.

Last weekend, I got asked to cover Lilith for a broader audience than I expected to reach from my cozy booth at Alter Eco. Like the stage artists all express, it’s an excitement and an honor, a welcome and scary opportunity. Broader visibility means exposure to more potential judgment. But my core purpose is there: to ask questions and bring Lilith to the public with my love and livelihood, the writing.

On the same day I got asked to cover more for Lilith, I was walking through the village at the L.A. show when I overheard a guy talking to his girlfriend. He floated by just long enough for me to hear:

“That’s how you have to ask. Like you’re beautiful on the inside.”

Negative rumblings have missed the soul and spirit of Lilith…the music, the talent, and the community that is here.  But the soul and celebration can be found on the inside, when you walk in the gates…on the stages, in the village, in the crowd.

The audiences may be smaller this year. Lilith may be faced with a new set of challenges that didn’t exist 13 years ago. Yet it’s still giving the goodness it always had. That’s complicated. But beautiful.