Off the Beet: Rocking out Green Style

My friend Sam and I drove 140 miles from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to see our favorite bands perform. After a sweaty night of being packed in with the moshing crowds, we revisited those roads with the air conditioning on full blast to get home. I rolled into bed, exhausted from our road trip, and wondered how much I had polluted to have an adventure. Between the gas we used to get there, the gas the band, crew, and other fans, and the electricity required to power the sound equipment and video screens, probably an awful lot.



Tegan and Sara perform in front of a screen displaying their lyrics.

The Honda Civic Tour, featuring Paramore and Tegan and Sara, advertised itself as going green. But with the green’s growing trendy status, it’s hard to just take their word for it and rest easy. I visited their website to try to get some facts.

The tour is partnering with a non-profit called Reverb that helps the music industry take on more sustainable practices. A portion of the ticket sales revenue will go to purchasing carbon offsets and to “boosting the tour’s capacity to make environmental change,” whatever that may mean. The tour’s website also lists some small gestures, such as biodegradable products backstage as well as reusable water bottles and filling stations for the bands and crew.

I find the last part a bit ironic. I wasn’t allowed to bring my metal water bottle into the show. I could purchase a bottle of water for four dollars and watch as the vendors poured its contents into a plastic cup. The planners may have wanted the band to have refillable water bottles and an ample water supply, but the same couldn’t be said for the hot fans staring up at the stage.

Like Paramore, the Black Eyed Peas are partnering with two environmentally minded non-profits for their tour, aptly named “The Energy Never Dies.” An apparel company, Rethink, also joined the team to make the concerts green. The company encourages fans to recycle their plastic bottles, which it advertises will later become Black Eyed Peas t-shirts. But only one of the twenty t-shirts featured in the official store uses the recycled plastic. There seems to be further contradictions. Will.i.am, the Black Eyed Peas rapper, released his own clothing line last spring, featuring numerous leather jackets and leather bags.

The only concert series I’ve seen so far that truly earns its green label is the Solar Concert Series, hosted at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh every Wednesday in July and August at lunchtime. The sound system is powered by the sun. People on the North Side generally walk over to hear the bluesy, acoustic music during their lunch hour. There are two more concerts this season: Applasia performs tomorrow and Jerome Hawk Freeman comes to town next week. These bands may never go platinum, but in my book they’re already green.

Post and photo by Amelia Possanza.