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Lilith Fair is already doing something positive for the summer concert business, which was in the doldrums. Tickets for Lilith, which cost between $12.50 and $46, are going fast in most of the remaining cities and in some cases are already gone. The first week of shows were all sellouts.
What was that line Virginia Woolf wrote in A Room of One's Own? "I should remind you how much depends on you, and what an influence you can exert upon the future." At Lilith you can sense the summer shifting, the musical center moving. Said 18-year-old fairgoer Cindy Chen of Seattle: "I don't like [alternative rock]. Too much moshing and men throwing themselves around. It's dangerous."
Lilith, at the show in George, proved to be a safe, sacred spot. Here were teenage girls in cutoff jeans and bikini tops, middle-aged moms in baggy T shirts and running shoes. Here a woman breast-fed her baby during Jewel's set; here fans sat dead-quiet, listening to the lyrics. Here a woman wore a T shirt marked "dyke" with a parodic Nike swoosh, while two other women walked comfortably hand in hand. Here a man in a concession-stand line talked excitedly about Sarah McLachlan's songwriting skills. Said Shellie Knawa, 30, a Seattle computer-manual writer: "This is finally a chance for our voice, women, to be heard." It's still summer. But the season's a-changin'.
--With reporting by David E. Thigpen/George and Lisa McLaughlin/New York