Musicians Green Their Own Beat Many musicians are often portrayed as denizens of excess when touring around the globe. Their heightened nomadic lifestyle parallels their rise with success, with demands often increasing as tours grow and expand. Their rise in popularity is mirrored by the legions of fans that attend their concerts. It’s only now that a few are starting to associate the significant impact such behaviour patterns have on the environment. Music has often been used as a vehicle for performers to express their political views, and bring awareness to world concerns. From Woodstock and the Concert for Bangladesh in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s to Band Aid and Farm Aid in the 1980’s, and into the 1990’s with Lilith Fair, music has been used as a medium for raising awareness and prompting change. Today, more than ever musicians are banding together to weigh in on everything from human rights issues, to environmental disasters, and global warming,
Green Music Group (GMG) is a coalition of musicians, industry leaders and music fans that facilitates large-scale greening of the music community that is committed to global environmental action. Newly formed just over a year ago (January 2010), all aspects of festival operations are reviewed, from touring, venue and label standards, to transportation, riders, and grassroots communication initiatives. One key element to their fastpaced road to success has been through establishing solid partnerships with various nonprofit environmental groups, as well as getting fans to buy into the concept. GMG officially launched with a small gathering of artists, music industry mavericks, non-profit partners, and environmentally#conscious # fans. The intimate house party also included performance by founding musician members Maroon 5, Dave Matthews Band, The Roots, and Guster. Guster guitarist/vocalist, Adam
Gardner and his environmentalist wife Lauren Sullivan envisioned GMG as an offshoot of Reverb, which itself is already responsible for greening nearly 100 major music tours. In the spring of 2004, the couple followed the Barenaked Ladies and Alanis Morissette on their “Au Naturale” tour, reaching out to friends and peers in the music world who would share their passion. They found resources (Bonnie Raitt) and renegades (Barenaked Ladies) to help figure out how to make touring a greener experience. “It was the dichotomy between how I was living at home, and what life on the road was like with my band, that sparked the idea for Reverb in the first place,” explains Gardner. Barenaked Ladies were the first band to take on the green challenge, and were matched with greening coordinators who took responsibility for recycling, composting, biodiesel fuel