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June 19th, USA, Portland (OR) Lilith Fair Festival

-Emperor's New Clothes
-I Am Stretched On Your Grave
-John I Love You
-Dreaming of the Bones
-In This Heart
-Fire On Babylon
-Last Day Of Our Acquaintance

By Erin;

Hi all, just got back from the opening Lillith Fair here in Portland, Oregon. I didn't stay for the whole thing because it wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with the crowd for artists I wasn't that interested in seeing. Anyway, I got there and discovered that there was a huge reserved seating section that you had to have a wristband to get into, and of course, my tickets were general admission, so I was stuck behind the fence about 800 feet away from the main stage with the rest of the cattle.  Biore is one of the sponsors of the Lillith Fair-they make those little nose strips, and they had people handing out samples on the way into the stadium. Well we took the strips and fitted them to our wrists so that they looked-at a glance-like one of the reserved seating bracelets. We flashed them at the security people and got in and right up to the stage as Sinead came on. She was wearing khaki pants and a white t-shirt that said "Jesus is coming." Here is the setlist, as well as any comments I can remember her making: - -Emperor's New Clothes - -I Am Stretched On Your Grave-"This is for all the dead people out there." same as last year - -John I Love You-"This is for anyone in recovery." - -Dreaming of the Bones-"Sit down and enjoy this." At this point, the crowd control people were forcing us to find seats because they said the people were creating a fire hazard - -In This Heart - -Fire On Babylon-1 round of the "Killer, Driller" chorus, as well as "Rasta Man" and "Deep Blue" lyrics. - -Last Day Of Our Acquaintance-"This is about dumping off that nuisance man--I shouldn't say that, we need men, they're very useful. All men are very sexy."

So, she played for about 40 minutes, 10 minutes past her scheduled time. there was no encore and no NC2U, which the 30something yuppie in front of me was very upset about. I agree with the general consensus that seeing her last year was a much better experience, as opposed to seeing her in this mass- produced festival atmosphere. She seemed comfortable enough, she talked a lot and looked out at the audience. But she was way underappreciated by the majority of the crowd. I also don't think she made any connections with any of the other artists. I left before Natalie Merchant and Sarah McLachlan (sp?) played, but somehow I doubt she played with either of them. I don't envision them in the same circles musically-but I would be interested in hearing from anyone else who saw the whole show, if she did join anyone else on stage. There were two t-shirts available. One was black and had a picture of her on front-with her hair Gospel Oak-promo-short, and the tour dates on back. The other was dark green with her name on front and tour dates on the back. No one was buying the black one, the vendor said. I felt kind of bad, but I bought the green one too--the paint on those portrait shirts always starts peeling after a few washes. That's all. Sorry this is so long. erin