The strains of folk guitar float above the Canterbury Downs crowd. The Indigo Girls are joined on stage by Jewel, Shawn Colvin and Sarah McLachlan. To the delight of the screaming Minneapolis throng, they sing a beautiful rendition of “The Water is Wide.”

The audience, both men and women, are entranced as some of the most talented women in music harmonize together.

This is Lilith Fair.

Last August, I was lucky enough to meet two friends in Minneapolis for one of the last legs of the inaugural Lilith Fair tour. We drove over four hours to buy overpriced souvenirs, stand in long lines for port-a-potties and listen to the women who inspired and comforted us with their music.

The concert was unbelievable. I loved listening to some of my favorite singers, and the concert was a great excuse to catch up with my friends. But the best part of Lilith Fair was the unity (pardon the cheesy word) of the women who attended.

Bohemian types with dredded hair jived to the likes of Dar Williams, pre-teen-aged girls shrieked when Jewel took the stage, and I sang my heart out when the Indigo Girls performed “Galileo.”

Where else but Lilith could different women, with vastly different tastes in music, gather in the same place and listen to each other’s music? I stood next to people I had nothing at all in common with, but I enjoyed their company and their take on the music of the day.

This is what makes Lilith Fair such an amazing experience. All of these women, from different backgrounds and different perspectives, could simply make and enjoy music together.

There are only women headlining the shows of Lilith Fair. There are men in the bands, but no man is the main performer. It’s all women.

In defense of this, tour founder McLachlan said the Lilith Fair was created only to commemorate women in music, not to discriminate against men.

“It doesn’t exclude men,” she said. “It simply celebrates women.”

And actually, there were still more men playing in Lilith Fair bands than there were women playing at the three other major tours of the summer, H.O.R.D.E., Ozzfest and Warped, where only 5 percent of the acts were women.

Lilith Fair is not about ignoring the importance and influence of male musicians.

The tour is about giving women a chance in a male-dominated industry—a chance they haven’t received in the past.

The truth is, women in rock face an uphill battle. They are a minority—on tours, on the radio, on record store shelves.

It used to be that radio stations wouldn’t play female musicians back-to-back.

In fact, McLachlan was told she was crazy to have Paula Cole open for her on tour — only because Cole was a woman, and women playing together wouldn’t draw crowds.

But then came Lilith Fair.

Hordes of music lovers, both women and men, flocked to cities all over the country to see women play their music.

And now things are changing in the music world.

Now there are radio programs solely devoted to playing music by women.

Now women are given a different kind of respect in the music industry.

No, this isn’t all because of Lilith Fair. But the fact that McLachlan proved all the critics wrong had a lot to do with it.

The music industry needed to realize that there are powerful female musicians who demand the industry’s recognition.

And the only way the powers-that-be would realize that was with a highly successful tour.

There’s no reason for men to be intimidated by the Lilith Fair.

It’s not an excuse for women to get together and “bash” men. And it’s not a “Let’s empower ourselves to take over the world and eat males” coup attempt.

It’s an excuse to get together with thousands of other women and chill to great music.

It’s a festival of women, something men should enjoy.

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Sara Ziegler is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Sioux Falls, S.D. She is the managing editor of the Daily.