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Pop quiz: What’s the difference between Lilith Fair, the traveling music festival where feminists bob and weave to the milquetoast stylings of womyn-rockers, and your average Ren Faire, where nerds dress up like knights and princesses and dork out to the harp-stylings of autodidactic new-age doofuses? The renaissance will live forever, but Lilith Fair, on its fourth outing and at just 13 years old, is practically dead. There are many reasons for this premature end—a tin-eared decision to allow online voters to funnel concert proceeds to anti-abortion nonprofits, the evolution of feminism, and the exodus of big-name draws like Kelly Clarkson and Norah Jones—but the festival is carrying on despite having to cancel some dates. A good thing, too, as Lilith Fair retains gaia mater Sarah McLachlan, a woman so devoted to her summer offspring that she’s committed to playing every date of the tour, even if she has to go it alone. For this pop lover, who watched his father slump over the steering wheel of a mud-flecked Dodge 3500 to hide the tears as “Angel” crept through the speakers on a hot July afternoon more than a decade ago, Canada’s premier tear-jerker is reason enough to attend what will surely be Lilith Fair’s going-away tour.
LILITH FAIR BEGINS AT 2:30 P.M. AT MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION, 10475 LITTLE PATUXENT PARKWAY, COLUMBIA, MD. $35-$50. (410) 715-5550.