How We'd Build an All-Women Rock Festival

Alberto E. Rodriguez, Getty Images / Erika Goldring, Getty Images for Americana Music / Rebecca Sapp, Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Last month, pop star Olivia Rodrigo announced Daisy Chain Fields, an all-female music festival she plans to both host and perform at on Aug. 29 in Irvine, California.

Participants will run the gamut of genre and background, including but not limited to Chappell Roan, Bikini Kill, Garbage, the Breeders, Stevie Nicks, Karen O and Sarah McLachlan, among others. McLachlan, of course, was the person who launched the famous Lilith Fair back in the late '90s, a touring festival that exclusively highlighted solo female artists and women-led bands, something Rodigo has called "a huge inspiration" for organizing Daisy Chain Fields.

As if that wasn't cool enough, all of the net proceeds from Daisy Chain Fields will be given to nonprofit organizations working to advocate for women and girls. Every one of the artists performing at the festival will be doing so for free.

We love all of this — nearly 30 years after Lilith Fair, it's about time female artists were given this large and exclusive of a spotlight, a surefire way to show young, aspiring singer-songwriters that women belong in these often male-dominated spheres of the music industry.

And it got us thinking: what if UCR planned its own all-female festival featuring the women of rock 'n' roll and those carrying the torch into the future? Here's what we've come up with, and if anyone would like to send along a million dollars to execute it, please drop a line.

Where Would It Be Held and for How Long?

The first order of business would be the location – where to put dozens of artists and tens of thousands of people? (We're going off the assumption that this festival would be perfectly marketed and therefore wildly well-attended.) And apart from the pure logistical concerns, it'd be great if the location held some kind of historical aspect.

For those reasons, plus our belief that the best music festivals take place outdoors, we're going to take a page out of the Grateful Dead's book and go with Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Multiple concerts have taken place there over the years, so it's no stranger to large crowds, able to host thousands of people with room to spare. Not to mention, the city itself lies just beyond the borders of the park, where plenty of cool restaurants, shops, hotels and more can be found.

As we know, San Francisco is an important place in terms of the history of rock music, and many notable women have ties to the city. Courtney Love was born there, while Grace Slick and Janis Joplin brought their powerful voices to the city from elsewhere and even the Dead had Donna Jean Godchaux in the band.

We're also thinking this will need to be a multi-day event — there simply are not enough hours in one day for all the music we'd like to hear.

Who Would Participate?

As far as the participants, the idea is to have three different categories of artists, which we'll explain in a moment. They wouldn't be separated into these groups — each day of the festival could feature a mixture of all them.

The first category is of what you might call the OG class of women in rock, the ones who laid the groundwork for all future female singer-songwriters. In this case, we're talking Stevie Nicks, Grace Slick, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Joan Jett, Carole King, Annie Lennox and Joni Mitchell. As far as we see it, that would cover a lot of ground genre-wise — psychedelic rock, punk, new wave, confessional songwriting, etc.

Watch Sarah McLachlan Perform With Joni Mitchell in 2023

But then we'd invite people from what might be described as the second wave of rock, like Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, PJ Harvey, Kim Gordon, Tori Amos and Chrissie Hynde. These are the people who found inspiration in the first group and took things to new levels in the '80s and '90s.

To really bring everything full circle, we'd also invite some more contemporary acts who are carrying the tradition of rock 'n' roll even further into the future. For that, we're looking at Margo Price, Taylor Momsen, Allison Russell, H.E.R., Courtney Barnett, St. Vincent, Haim, Waxahatchee, Brandi Carlile, Larkin Poe, Olivia Jean, Rodrigo herself and almost certainly some others. (Really, you could make an entire festival built around just this group.)

In organizing the festival lineup like this, the hope would be to not only trace the journey of women in rock, but highlight how it has created a tapestry of art via both old and young hands. These women may have had separate careers with different obstacles, but they can all be tied together in this way.

Watch Haim Perform Fleetwood Mac's 'Oh Well' in 2014

The Proceeds

In an ideal world — which is the kind we're imagining this festival taking place in — our event also donates the proceeds to various women-related causes, things like preventing domestic abuse, encouraging education and supporting women's academic and domestic goals. Even better would be to host informational booths staffed with people at the ready to discuss such programs and resources with the concert-goers. On a more fun note, musical activities for kids could be available to show young girls basic elements of writing, recording and producing music.

We're describing a festival that is, frankly, built on the same basis as Rodrigo's, just with a slightly more rock-centric approach. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that rock 'n' roll would not have taken hold of the world or become the genre it is today without the contributions of women, both the kind mentioned above that perform on stage and the kind who work behind the scenes. Approximately three decades after McLachlan started Lilith Fair, it's time for a new wave.