Ugh. Much of the ugh was due to the venue, First Midwest Bank Amphitheater in Tinley Park. And I heard Sarah McLachlan complained to LiveNation (the devil) about missing what the Fair was about which is funny to me because the devil doesn’t care what your message is so why bother with them in the first place? Anyway, the badness of Chicago’s Lilith Fair has nothing to do with the performers or the organizers or the patrons..they were all lovely. Congress Theater would have made a better venue and that place is goddamn awful.

The rules of Worst Midsucks Sucksatheater started off with being able to bring very little in. No chairs above 9 inches, no backpacks, one those small insulated lunchboxes was allowed, one bottle of liquid (20 oz. max) per person, etc. So the plan was to tailgate in the parking lot beforehand, but then that wasn’t allowed. Once you got past the first gates you were corralled into a large lot with booths selling $4.50 water and $11 Budlight. The $5 bottles of pop were stripped of their caps (for artist safety?). There were no booths for Planned Parenthood, or local LGBT shelters, or women’s orgs or even funky crafts from artists. And that’s just fucking sad for Lilith Fair. What we got was a janky cigarette tent giving away (and pushing you to try right then and there) Camel’s disgusting SNUS line (because women LOVE chewing tobacco??), a tent selling Nalgenes for $15, a Zippo tent, and others I blanked out as soon as I passed due to heat exhaustion.

Unless you found a person with programs you had no idea who was performing where and when. A long line formed to get into the main stage area which was the only place to sit down. No one told us when they would let us in (besides saying ‘in 5 minutes’ every 5 minutes), all I knew was that making hundreds of people walk around these booths or stand in line clueless for 1.5 hours in a lot with no breeze, 95+ temperatures with fucking blacktop was a pretty bad way to start.

Finally we were let in and a massive lady dash to find shade ensued. I heard a lot of people moan about missing acts because it really wasn’t made clear what was going on. I spent the majority of my time with my head under a water fountain or bruising my tailbone on the lawn refusing to buy anything. They were selling upgrades to the seated portion for $10, which would bring the ticket price to less than half what LiveNation was selling them for online. But because soooo many seats were open there was no point in giving LiveNation more money for an upgrade, you could just go and sit. Oh and yet another cancellation happened, La Roux didn’t show up.

Anyway, I went for Mary and loved Mary but had I known what it would be like I would’ve opted to see her another time. I left right after her set pretty grossed out by the whole day, even her performing flawlessly couldn’t get my spirits up. The economy is rough for concerts, the weather is exceptionally harsh and I’m glad they tried..perhaps it’s different in other cities but in Chicago it was a massive disappointment.