Green Tours' Main Challenge: the Fans

But for a Radiohead-size band, the only city-center options are sports arenas — and environmental concerns aren't the only factor in deciding where to play. "Radiohead's show doesn't lend itself to an arena setup," says the band's production manager, Richard Harris. "The experience for some of the audience is quite poor, since they're looking from the side or back corner of the place. Primarily, what we're there to do is put on a show for the fans." Other green-minded acts — including Johnson and the Dave Matthews Band — share Radiohead's frustration with the lack of appropriate venues. "When you're playing to 15,000 to 30,000 people, there are only a few venues in every town that can actually do it," says Johnson's manager, Emmett Malloy. "We're trying to find nontypical venues, but that becomes its own problem: It takes a lot of resources to get our stuff to those places."

Car-pooling helps, and some venues are chipping in by opening up traffic lanes and parking lots solely for groups — with some of Radiohead's amphitheaters reporting a 10 percent reduction in the number of cars in their lots. "Venues are very responsive to the idea of car-pool lots," says DMB bass player Stefan Lessard. "Anything that makes it easier to get people in and out saves time and money."

It's easier for bands to cut back on their own carbon output. Much of Radiohead's equipment was sent from Europe by ship, reducing their total air-freight load from 20 metric tons in 2003 to a single metric ton this time. Their lighting rig is composed entirely of LEDs, which consume less power. And the band invested in two full stage sets, one for America and one in Europe, to further reduce shipping. (The U.S. stage is being sent by boat to Japan while the band is on break.)

Radiohead aren't the only group to run into logistical problems when trying to make their tours ecofriendly. Johnson has tried for years to convince venues to allow water stations where fans can fill reusable containers for free. "It's been a really big challenge," says Malloy. "You're cutting into a big revenue stream."

Many tours have switched their fleets at least partially to cleaner-burning biodiesel, but some critics now believe the alternative fuel does more harm than good. "A few years ago, the idea of farmers growing their own fuel was great," says Matthews. "Then you get Exxon involved, and they start leveling rainforests to produce 'farm fuels.'"

A true carbon-neutral tour isn't going to happen anytime soon, an idea most artists seem to accept. "We've made peace with the fact that there's downsides in getting this many people to congregate," Malloy says. "We're trying to do everything we can think of, and hopefully at the end of this tour we'll find 50 more things we can do to make the next one that much better."

[From Issue 1054 — June 12, 2008]