How Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Festival Made History

F or decades, fans have been asking Sarah McLachlan the same question: “When are you going to revive Lilith Fair?” The traveling all-women festival, which took place in the summers of 1997 through 1999, was McLachlan’s direct response to the sexism of the music industry, and the promoters who told her that multiple women couldn’t be featured on the same concert lineup (or played consecutively on radio, for that matter). And for nearly 30 years, the singer-songwriter gave the same answer: Lilith Fair was in the past. “I’m too old,” she told Rolling Stone last year. “If it were to [happen], it should be someone young spearheading it, who’d let it be something different.”

That someone turned out to be Olivia Rodrigo , who just started her own all-women festival: Daisy Chain Fields , held Aug. 29 at Great Park in Irvine, California. The lineup featured powerhouse artists across genres and generations, including Chappell Roan , Doechii , Bikini Kill, Garbage, the Breeders, Mitski, and Not for Radio. Rodrigo headlined the event — which drew a crowd of 45,000 jubilant fans — while she tore through tracks from her fantastic new album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love . She also brought out her heroes onstage: Alanis Morissette for “Ironic,” Stevie Nicks for “Landslide,” and McLachlan herself. “I feel like I’m dreaming,” Rodrigo told the crowd. “This is the best day of my fuckin’” life!”

As it turns out, McLachlan was the first person Rodrigo called when she was planning Daisy Chain. “I have a snapshot memory,” she tells McLachlan, in a video interview for Rolling Stone. “I was so nervous to call you, and I was really cold, huddling by my fireplace in my house. I was like, ‘Just do it! Just do it! She’s going to be really nice!’ I was so over the moon to receive your blessing and to get advice and support from you. That meant the world.” As McLachlan tells it, it was an immediate yes. “Joy and elation in an instant,” she says. “I was like, ‘Hallelujah! Someone is finally taking the torch and carrying it forward.’” Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

Rodrigo, McLachlan, Roan, and Doechii are featured on our new Rolling Stone digital cover commemorating Daisy Chain. The groundbreaking festival raised $10 million in donations that will go to nonprofit organizations benefitting women and girls, including the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood. That donation was then doubled by philanthropist Melinda French Gates, making it $20 million. In our video interview — filmed in Los Angeles a few days before Daisy Chain — Rodrigo and McLachlan joined Rolling Stone ’s co-editor-in-chief Shirley Halperin and senior writer Angie Martoccio. They discussed starting both Daisy Chain and Lilith Fair, sexism in the industry, what they love about each other’s music, and the power an all-women festival can have. “Music was the first medium where the way I felt was really accepted,” Rodrigo says. “Growing up, that was my safe space.