Earthy Girls’ Room Tour Chases Lilith’s Spirit

Billed by the artists’ record label as a bid to fill the void left by the late, lamented Lilith Fair, the Girls’ Room tour presented four promising female musicians in a free, all-ages show at the Roxy on Tuesday.

Fresh-faced Capitol Records singer-songwriters Amy Correia, Kendall Payne, Tara MacLean and Shannon McNally proved individually appealing with their distinctive voices and upbeat, folk-and-blues-infused rock songs.

The vibe was earthier than Lilith’s but similarly good-natured, as they joked about being sponsored by a maker of feminine-hygiene products and, perhaps because it was the tour’s last night, exchanged flowers and hugs.

Still, like early Lilith incarnations, the three-hour concert became a bit homogenous. Backed by mostly male musicians (what, they couldn’t find more chicks to do it?), the performers didn’t radiate the grrrl-empowering edge of Olympia’s recent Lady Fest, but their 30-minute sets were less pristine than the Lilith standard.

Correia’s mournful, vinegar-and-honey vocals lent emotional depth to such numbers as “Fallen Out of Love,” but she also sang more rollicking folky tunes. Payne, whose song “Supermodels” is the theme to the WB’s teen series “Popular,” displayed an affinity for bluesy rock a la Sheryl Crow, and her powerhouse voice burst with passion. Canadian MacLean tipped things back to folk-rock with selections from her album “Passenger,” while McNally closed the evening with expansive, sexy, folk-flecked grooves that nicely framed her agile voice.

At the end they all enticed veteran artist Victoria Williams onto the stage to turn James Brown’s classic “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” on its head. The Girls Room concept will ultimately need more than such charming camaraderie to be a perfect successor to Lilith, but it wasn’t a bad start.