Photo: WENN
When Reading + Leeds organisers added The Libertines, The Cribs, The Maccabees, Everything Everything, A$AP Ferg and Django Django to their 2015 line-up at the start of this year, they were probably hoping for a tidal wave of excitement and support. Instead, something in the public's consciousness snapped. The glaring omission of female artists on the bill (the line-up comprised just under 90% all-male acts) had become impossible to ignore, and the tidal wave transformed to one of anger.
There've been plenty of comment pieces already on how frequently female artists are sidelined at festivals, and whether there's an explanation for it that goes beyond the simplicities of outright sexism - but Haim would rather put their anger into action.
"We talk about this all the time," Este Haim told music critic Kelefa Sanneh at the New Yorker Festival a few months back, "How there aren’t enough female-represented bands and artists at festivals. You don’t see them. And it’s really sad for us. We came up with the idea, basically, of just bring[ing] back a festival that’s just ladies."
It would certainly help to redress the balance - and if it was commercially successful, festival bookers would have to stop hiding behind their tired old excuses: "We're just booking who the public wants to see," they often insist, or - as if all female musicians decided to take a summer cruise together at the same time - "It's simply a case of availability."
The idea has seen its share of criticism though - and not just from those who'd rather pretend festivals don't have a gender problem in the first place. Speaking of Lillith Fair, the female-only festival that ran for a few years in the '90s, St. Vincent once said, "Hey, hop aboard the marginalising train." But surely, when female artists are marginalised on a daily basis anyway, it makes sense for them to take matters into their own hands? Charli XCX certainly thinks so.
"[I think its a] brilliant idea," she told Gigwise, just before she released her brilliant BBC documentary on feminism. "I have so much respect for those girls, and I think that's an awesome idea, because there are so many incredible female musicians and bands who never get to headline festivals or be even high up the bills, and I think doing a festival full of women would be amazing. I'm down."
Photographer: Chloe Newman
That's one act for the line-up, then. What about the Mercury-nominated SOAK? "I think that's an interesting idea," she told us. "I think it's cool that they're doing it, especially with all the controversy about Reading & Leeds. I'd be interested to see how that comes out. I think some festivals definitely overdo it with the male to female ratio."
Foxes is up for it too - though she's reluctant for it to become a permanent event. "I feel like that is a good idea as a one-off," she said. "I don't think it's something that should be made as like a yearly thing, I think it's nice to have a variation of men and women."
"I think it's important," said Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein. "If it's a good line-up it's a good line-up I guess, but I think it's a good idea... but I also would understand if people didn't want to participate in it. I don't know. I think it's always an interesting endeavour."
When we spoke to Lucy Rose, one of the few female artists who actually was on R+L's 2015 line-up, she was keen to point out that gender imbalance is hardly limited to just the festival bills. "There's been a couple festivals I've been to this year, and backstage nearly every crew member has been male.. and you very rarely come across many female session musicians."
And it's a societal problem too - one that begins at childhood. Rose believes that "more men go into rock music than women," but not because they're inherently more interested or talented - rather, because most girls aren't given the opportunity. "Does it stem right back to a little boy's 8th birthday," she asked us, "where he gets a small drum kit, and a girl's 8th birthday where she is given a doll, and it's driven into us that girls are interested in these activities and boys these? Who knows?"
We do know one thing though - the tide is turning, and it's becoming harder and harder for festival bookers to ignore. Look out Melvin Benn, Haim are coming for you.
