August 11 Diary
Riverbend Amphitheatre, Cincinatti
"Goodbye Pretenders"

Brian Minnato said that the going away party for The Pretenders was the best one of all three years on the Lilith Fair tour and I think I agree. Everybody was there from local crew on up to management, dancing and partaking of the daiquiri bar hosted by Ash, Adam, and Tim O.

I think everyone is really sorry to see the Pretenders leave the tour. The past couple of days have been the absolute best lineup, maybe in the entire history of Lilith Fairs. On mainstage the lineup ran-Deborah Cox, The Pretenders, The Indigo Girls, Sheryl Crow, and Sarah McLachlan! A fabulous group of artists to play together.

For me it's been great because I've been a fan of The Pretenders since I was sixteen (now 28) and a fan of The Indigo Girls since I was 19. Plus, I'm a newly turned fan of Sheryl Crow, she really puts on great show and I hadn't really given her music the time of day previously. I became a Sarah fan after the first tour in 1997. Sad to say I was not familiar with Sarah's music before I did the first tour! Now I own all of her CD's except for one, and yes I've paid for all of them except for the one which I got as a promotiona gift from a completely different job than this one. Actually I'm wrong, I don't own Two of Sarah's CDs-I don't have"Rarities" or the new one, "Mirror Ball". But in all honesty I'm not big on owning live albums. Except of course U2-"Under a Blood Red Sky".

The highlight for me on this tour happened last night. Chrissy Hynde came up and initiated a conversation with me! I don't usually fall victim to the fan syndrome but as I said earlier, and in a previous diary, I've liked The Pretenders since I was sixteen which is a very important time. They were punk rock without being too hard and screechy, and had "nice" what I would call romantic songs in the mix that weren't too sappy. They're living legends and I just had (and still do) so much respect for her (Chrissy) as a rockin' female performer who had a "bad ass" attitude which was rare to see in the mainstream in those days. So I actually got to talk to her and I didn't tell her any of that-we just had a normal conversation and I felt that it was important to just do that. Maybe I'm wrong. I guess I'll never know. It's funny too because when I introduced myself she said, "hi, I'm Chrissy". I couldn't believe that.