Lilith Fair B stage powerhouse N' Dea Davenport is what a live performance is all about.

Can I just tell you that I have had my mind totally blown? Can I tell you what a good time I had yesterday? There is nothing that I love more than a powerful woman. I draw so much of my strength and inspiration from powerful women. N'Dea Davenport's extremely charged and energetic performance at Lilith Fair has been my favorite!

Bear with me I'm going to go off on a slight tangent: I had the opportunity to be present at the press conference earlier that morning when a reporter addressed N'Dea as Erykah Badu, DUH! It was a major screw up an I wanted to feel bad for they guy except that #1 N'dea looks NOTHING like Erykah and #2 N'Dea's name was blazing at him from a giant pink card on the table in front of her microphone. He saw a black woman and that's all he saw. I felt bad for N'dea, how do you handle a person that acts like they want to know about you, but they don't even bother to make sure they know who you are? Society tells us women to always be sweet and polite and ladylike even if someone is totally out of line. I hate that. I like to be able to tell someone, You know what you F%$#@!, I'm going to come over there to set you straight!" But I have a really bad temper and punching people in the throat is not the way to go unless you like jail. The air in the press area was strained and uncomfortable until N'Dea said what we all wanted to say, " I understand. We all look the same." I knew by the way she looked right into his eyes and confronted his ignorance that this woman wasn't afraid of anything! If her music was as real and straight forward as her I knew I was going to like it! And then with all of the elegance of a totally confident human being she went onto answer the next question...mine.

I wanted to know if the Lilith women thought all of this sisterhood would impact the way they wrote music in the future. Speaking for herself she said, she said she knew it would. It meant a lot to her that there were so many different types of artists at this year's festival and she seemed really moved by the support of the other artists. There was an intensity in the way that she answered the question that made it hard for me to take my eyes off of her long enough to write as she spoke or else I'd give you some exact quotes. Her main concern seemed to be that we needed to give all music a chance, and that when it comes to music...the more the merrier. I was really into her fearless way of speaking, and I loved how she confronted that guy. This was a performance I wasn't going to miss...or forget!

Tangent over: Let's go to the show!

Wow! Omigod! It's like music is JOY for N'dea! She is so charismatic and sings like her life depends on it! Like she is giving you every part of her fierce self when she is up there. You have to see her! She is such a physical, animated woman that you can't help it, you have to dance. You have to! That's how good she is! Her passion for her music is contagious and her voice commands your attention. You want to know what she's saying! She was performing on the B stage but she addressed everyone all over the great big lawn near the main stage and soon everyone was under her spell. I stopped playing reporter and danced my booty off! It felt great to be there with her and her awesome band! It was like they weren't really performing for the crowd but celebrating with the crowd!

By the time she began singing a cover of Old Man everyone was grooving with her, and I knew I needed to own her CD. When she was done I wanted her to do more, she was so dynamic and such a great performer that I didn't want her to stop! As I walked away I noticed the sting in my hand from clapping so hard and I was gross and sweaty from dancing in 102 degree weather! And that's when I know I am enjoying someone's performance, when I don't even care about heat stroke (and I'm a big baby about those kinds of things!). N'dea is right, it is important to explore different artists and different music. And If I hadn't seen and heard her perform that day, I really would have missed out, big time!

What makes me really happy is that I get to see her do it again tomorrow!

Insane screaming.

I didn't need to look at my schedule and I didn't need a watch. When I heard that roar...I knew Sarah's set was starting.

When I watched her do her first song (from the front row thanks to the awesome all access pass). I saw the same sweetness in her face that she had at the press conference earlier that day. The audience LOVES her! And she smiles at them and it makes them scream more. She really looks into the crowd while she sings and I think they must all feel like "She's singing just to me!"

Sarah's fans are not the only ones sensitive to Sarah's radiance. All of the performers praise her for her giving and warm personality. I got to eavesdrop during a couple of interviews so I should know. Lucinda Williams, a renegade rock and roll mama and Lilith B stage performer is no different than the other Lilith women when it comes to what she thinks of McLachlan, "Sarah! She's so beautiful. I mean, man, what a spirit! She just glows!" And Williams is right, Sarah absolutely glows. First of all Sarah has a figure that would make a priest burn his collar! An amorous male fan in the Dallas crowd yelled up to the stage" SARAH! YOU'RE HOTTER THAN TEXAS!!!!" She laughed sweetly and said in a slight Texas drawl, "Why Thank You Darlin'!" And then she went into her next song. The entire crowd hushes immediately and pays homage to their diety by sitting on the edges of their seats and blankets lisening to every syllable and every note: rocking back and forth slowly. At the end of the song they ERUPT into another round of noisy worhip.

So what do you get when one of music's most beloved performers announces that another one of music's most beloved performers going to join her on stage? You get an earful of pandemonium! The applause just fills the whole sky and I'm sure people in the next town can hear what's going on! Sarah announces "Ms. Bonnie Raitt!" and out of the darkness on the right hand side of the stage emerges the legendary musician. She gets her guitar and mouths a warm thank you to Sarah and they begin.

If the crowd was noisy before, imagine wishing you had two sets of earplugs. That's how loud it was. but what I thought was the coolest was when Bonnie Raitt did her guitar solo! It was so cool because I remember seeing countless male singers step aside to let the male guitarist do his thing. To see two women doing it and to see how a crowd full of women were loving it was wild! And that's when I knew the power of Sarah.

Because Sarah started Lilith Fair, there were thousands of young girls destoying their vocal cords to worship the guitar prowess of Bonnie Raitt. Does anyone else realize how monumental this is? Does anyone realize that if it wasn't for Lilith fair alot of these young girls would be ruining their vocal cords worhippig Hanson at a mall appearance! Thanks to Sarah last night a lot of girls when home with grand dreams of taking the stage to play guitar like Bonnie Raitt! And once that seed is planted there is no turning back.

Music will be changed forever.