Coldplay have announced that they will not be touring their new album until such time as they can find a way to make their gigs carbon neutral. Now, ladies and gentlemen of The Afterword, do not slide lazily into a smug rejoice, just because Coldplay aren’t, you know … they just aren’t very Afterword. What is the real significance of this announcement?
I take the warnings of the academics and experts seriously. I fear that most of us haven’t yet comprehended the ways in which our lives are going to have to change if we are not to cause irreversible damage to the climate. And, of course, I am a hypocrite, because there are countless ways in which I could do more to consume less. As the crews swap between acts on festival stages, I ponder the cost to the planet of my hedonism. There’s the electricity, for starters, just to pump up the volume, even for an ‘acoustic’ act. There’s the methane skull and crossbones lingering in unsavoury fashion above the burger van, the excess consumption going on in the beer tent. Meanwhile, on the campsite, all those Boomer campervans have each guzzled diesel to get there, but that is nothing to the international artists who have flown in from who-knows-where (though as a result it is doubtless either desertifying or sinking beneath the waves.) Hell, have you seen the itineraries of the average folkie on tour? Whatever talents they or their manager may have, geography ain’t one of them, evidenced by the inefficient zig-zags across the country, hightailing it up and down the M40 to the next arts centre / folk club.
And yet, maybe a festival or a mega gig is not the environmental disaster one might think. As a vehicle for delivering the entertainment we crave, such events have the economies of scale which may make it a reasonable use of our dwindling resources. And so progress my thought processes. If we really have to think in terms of rationing our carbon emissions, as all agree who are not in the pay of some Koch Foundation or another, then I would think there is a good case for musicians to make their claim for a decent ration. The other really painful abstention that I can see coming is foreign travel, but I’d like to see a case made for the cultural value of that too, justifying its occasional (annual holiday) carbon emissions. There are all sorts of activities and behaviours that strike me as anachronistic in their flouting of the environmental needs of the times. F1 racing; ‘parental choice’ turning schoolkids into commuters in their pre-teens; Christmas shopping on the other side of the Atlantic; for crying out loud – stag dos in Riga. We just can’t keep on doing this stuff. But guess what? I didn’t do any of it anyway, so it’s all very pious for me to suggest that others should stop NOW while I still want to carry on with my folk music and holidays in the sun.
A penny for your thoughts?
I do enjoy the convenience of my unleaded-petrol-powered (and thus not very eco-friendly) car. The thing is, after 30 years of dissatisfied motoring I finally have a car that’s quite often a pleasure to drive.
Now I have my OAP’s free bus pass. What a shame I don’t live in a London Borough, because then I’d have free Tube travel too.
Once the car dies, as they all eventually do, I’ll be a strictly Public Transport kind of a guy, I have decided. I could do it now, I suppose, if I was prepared to suffer waiting at freezing bus-stops with my groceries or using two different buses to get to and from my preferred pub. Or taking about 4 times as long to travel there.
The days of the personally-owned and driven powered vehicle are numbered, I hope. Does not fit with a properly ecological society.
Bring on all the technology that does not produce waste and is reliable, versatile, non-toxic and cheap. Particularly regarding manufacturing and transport.
For now, it would be nice if the ridiculous amount of plastic packaging and useless junk artefacts we have to try and recycle was replaced by genuinely non-polluting stuff or, even better, done away with altogether.
It would also be nice if -controversially, here- all the physical plastic-based media we get our music from could be replaced with something entirely non-physical but with some kind of more pleasurable experience attached. Something to really savour with our other senses, as we listened, replacing all that album cover stroking/gazing.
As for live music performance, the transport and venue sustainability dilemmas can be solved by manufacturing and power generation improvements as wished for above.
And here’s an idea. Venue P.A. systems could be done away with completely by all instuments incorporating transmitters and all individuals present, both performers and punters, being able to mix the performance to their liking via receiver headsets. On entry to a gig you’d be given a headset with a preset mix, which you could alter to suit your own preference. Or you’d have a headset/implant of your own anyway and be able to log into the feed to receive it.
The silent disco” with wireless headphones is already here.
That’s an amazing idea! I’ve heard of silent discos, yes, but never silent gigs.
It would solve a number of problems in one fell swoop:
– Drown out people chatting
– Get a great mix right to your ears wherever you are in the venue
– Wipes out a whole host of sound-mixing headaches. Whenever I have played live in any capacity, it’s always been an uphill struggle to overcome feedback, to get a good stage mix for the band, tame bass and volume peaks, etc etc ad infinitum….
Why, with the “silent disco” approach you could even have a band playing acoustically on stage (I meant TRUE acoustic – a group of musicians sitting on stage facing each other and properly hearing each others’ instruments and voices, like a folk session), then just mic it up with some lovely condenser mics (no need to worry about feedback with no PA), get a sympathetic soundman to properly mix it with some judicious spot reverb, and you would have the perfect gig experience!
Why has no one ever tried this?
Actually, looks like it’s already a “thing”! There’s even a company who specialises in it: http://www.silentarena.com/silent-gig
Flaming Lips did do a similar thing back in the late 90s where they’d give out headsets and broadcast the show on an FM frequency. I reckon it’s a great idea.
What if you got interference?
“Waiiiiidaminit, that’s not Do You Realise, it’s Spanish Flea!”
“Hey Charlie, you copy? After you drop off those 2 cellists at the Albert Hall I’ve got a pickup from the Groucho club to the Wigmore Hall and then an old couple from Waterloo station to Upper Street. Talk about busy tonight! Come in, Charlie”
Right in the middle of Elvis Costello’s performance of a brand new as-yet-unrecorded song.
“I want you… your fingernails go dragging down the wall… THIS VEHICLE IS REVERSING”
I imagine that was based on a drive-in cinema system.
Well, the carbon footprint concern was the majority of my decision not to attend any Wishbone Ash shows this year (in their annual Oct-Nov English/Scottish tour). I’ve gone to one or two in the previous few years but I just felt I couldn’t justify the plane trip from Belfast this time, and not financially. I suspect future plane trips will be extremely limited. In fact, I can’t foresee any.
When Taylor Swift toured Australia she used TWO of these behemoths to cart her gear around. When they flew over our house for the Brisbane gig it was as if the world was coming to an end. (One wag suggested that one of them was for her shoes.)
When I worked at the Eden Project they used to close an entire staff car park to accommodate the trucks for the Sessions – even support bands you’d never heard of would turn up with enough gear to fill a dozen Ford Transits. This caused intense discussion of course (and caused a brief spike in staff car-sharing) without any real conclusion – as long as this malarkey makes financial sense it’ll continue. I struggle to see how it could, but I’m no economist.
So I applaud Coldplay’s decision. I suspect as time goes on more huge stadium bands will follow their lead. Not that I would have paid to see them anyway, so I’m not part of the equation.
At this September’s Physics at Work event at the Cavendish Labs, I went to a short lecture on superconductors. If we could rig up enough solar panels on the equator, we’d only need to capture 1% of the sunlight to serve the electricity needs of the whole planet. The trouble is, today’s power lines are made of copper or aluminium and are lossy. Put 1 MegaWatt in at the equator, transport it by national grids to Europe, and you get miles of hot cables and a fraction of the power arriving at the destination. So you can see how superconducting cables might help.
My first visit in 21 years to the Reading Festival made me realise how much better the next generation are treating the planet.
They were taking their plastic beer pots to the recycling stall, we used to set fire to ours. The ones we didn’t piss in and chuck at Meatloaf, anyhow.
On the downside, they left many more tents behind at the campsite than we did. Cheap manufacture in China and low perceived value in the west makes them ‘disposable’.
I think I read somewhere that the tents are gathered up and given to the homeless, so that’s something. They’d probably rather have a house, though.
Mrs. Paws and I discussed this at the weekend. Our local multiplex regularly screens ballet and opera performances that (one assumes) are happening down in that there London. Why don’t bands do this sort of thing as well? Surely it can’t be that difficult to arrange if they already live stream something from the ENO then surely we could stream the Coldplay at some enormodome.
But it just wouldn’t be the same watching a gig without the atmosphere in the room – namely beered-up pricks pointlessly trying to film the whole thing on their phones.
To be fair to the regulars at Covent Garden they usually save that sort of behaviour for the intervals.
To be fair I’d get agitated if I had to wear a cummerbund.
The Stones have just finished a tour of cinemas, playing the 2016 Havan Moon tour “live” (on screen) so it’s already happening…….(happened)
https://film.list.co.uk/article/109053-the-rolling-stones-havana-moon-gig-gets-immersive-cinema-tour/
Stones used to tour cinemas in the sixties too…
Oddly enough, two Coldplay-appreciating civilians were discussing this in the cafe yesterday.
Last time they went to the O2 and had the usual shit sound, hassles of crossing town at closing time, missing the last train home, etc. They’d both happily pay £20 to see the album launch gig in the comfort of our local flea-pit. “We’d be home in 10 minutes”.
Turn streamed gigs into Rocky Horror Show – type parties and it could really be a winner.
I haven’t been to a Big Gig in years, purely because I cannot abide anymore the hassle of getting to such places, queueing to get into them past security and generally being treated like one of a herd of cattle for the whole experience.
Comfy seats, a really good sound system and a giant screen somewhere local would be just the thing for me. Probably a far better experience than being in a crap seat peering at tiny dots on a stage in the distance or at a venue screen that’s just a bit too far away.
Let’s face it, if you go to see a top international star at a megadome venue then, unless you’ve paid an enormous sum of money, you’re going to be watching them on a screen anyway.
Yep. I never saw Talking Heads live but I did see Stop Making Sense in a cinema and there was, like literally, dancing in the aisles.
The Monty Python reunion at the O2 a few years ago was screened at cinemas – live, I believe? That had a real sense of occasion. I did genuinely feel as if I had attended the gig.
I have wondered if the Coldplay decision was helped by the evident “un-tourable” feel of the new album, but I like Coldplay so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.
The last album they didn’t tour was “Ghost Stories” a similarly downbeat piece of work.
You can miniaturise the gear quite a bit. I saw hawkwind at the weekend and their lightshow (very good, as ever) comprised one projector and two ever-busy lasers. it would fit in one smallish flight case. I saw Todd Rundgren do a band show with most of the gear in a U-Haul trailer which likewise had intelligent use of technology and some imagination. It’s the enormodome plus gear syndrome. Huge bands in the 70s put on big shows with three lorries. One keyboard can do the work of a dozen. Now people have 30 lorry shows, though the equipment is more versatile, lighter, and reliable than it was. But as others have said, the attraction of seeing a stadium or festival show is passing. It’s expensive and you feel shafted from the point you park the car, irrespective of the artist’s possible integrity.
It’s bizarre, isn’t it? Seventies acts carted around multiple massive synthesizers and organs the size and weight of a large filled coffin, and huge valve amps that weighed a ton, and STILL today’s acts carry about ten times the amount of gear.
Indeed. I’m often baffled at the sheer number of people involved in ‘production’ at arena type shows these days. It really isn’t necessary. I’ve just posted elsewhere here about the Mahavishnu Orch’s road crew in 1971-75: three people, plus a few tours with a hired in sound man as well. That was it. In 1974-75 almost all of their gear hauling on the road, when they were an 11-piece act, was done by one guy, Greg – who now makes pizzas in California.
The kit just isn’t the same these days and tours aren’t allowed to put crew and audiences in danger. The small amount of work I’ve done that crossed over between corporate and music was very H&S conscious, no drink and especially no drugs on site, working hours strictly controlled. One person shouldn’t rig and operate a truck load of gear then have to drive to the next gig, it’s not safe.
Yes, it’s a fair point. The 70s was a foreign country…
Sound equipment is more compact: A digital desk has all the outboard effects racks (delays, graphic EQs etc) built in and line arrays mean no one tours walls of Marshall stacks. There are no more huge “meat racks” of Parcans as intelligent moving lights have got better and cheaper but LED walls take up a lot of truck space so video has, generally, grown as it’s become more integral to shows rather than just being a camera image for those at the back.
So what is Taylor Swift carrying around in those two huge Antonovs above then?
The bigger the venue, the more kit you need plus I’m guessing some of it will be set & stage too. It seems flying the gear was the only way to meet the schedule. Iron Maiden not only do this but have their own in house pilot too.
The Swedish band Bob Hund did a tour where they borrowed instruments from fans in each city they played, because they’d sold their own when they lost their rehearsal space.
Comedian Dave Gorman did a UK tour, “Sit Down, Stand Up”, a couple of years ago where he cycled between venues. His tech rider is a laptop running PowerPoint, a projector and a mic.
Didn’t Paul Heaton recently do a tour on a similar basis?
You’re right, although it seems it was 2010
https://road.cc/content/news/17064-paul-heaton-swaps-tour-bus-two-wheels-pedal-powered-pub-gigs
I’m sure I read somewhere that The Housemartins toured by saving up Mars Bar wrappers to exchange for National Express coach tickets or was that just Heaton having a joke?
2010 is recent in AW time!
John Jones ,of Oysterband, tours his Reluctant Ramblers show on foot, venue to venue. They seem mainly in Shropshire, where he lives.
John Jones and the Reluctant Ramblers are the subject of, appropriately enough, the latest Folk on Foot podcast.
My photographer pal was at the Glasgow (might have been Edinburgh) Hawkwind show and took pics. I don’t do Facebook, so I can only see some, but if you’re interested-
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Photographer/neilhendersonphotography/posts/
Ta! I think Hawkwind use whatever kit is in the venue along with their own, and in Birmingham town hall there were no spotlights whatsoever. quite a good idea as it makes every show spontaneous.
Stacia didn’t use any kit. Hurrrrr
Apparently Billy Bragg said the other night that when he tours abroad he only flies once each way, and drives the rest. He plays plastic-aware venues and all that stuff. But he pointed out that if two people fly from New York to London to see his show, all that effort is wiped out.
I think that lies at the heart of my OP. Maybe the apparent excess of a gig is not so bad. Flying a small number of performers around the globe to play to local audiences is maybe an acceptable cost of maintaining the entertainment and culture that we love; the audience flying to the performers is not!
Whilst the intentions of Coldplay are noble and should be applauded, this is a flaw in their argument. For someone as big as Coldplay, there will definitely be a significant number that would fly to the UK to see them if they only played there (I read somewhere they are playing the Natural History Museum to promote this album). Even I flew half way around the world just to see Kate Bush a few years ago before all this carbon footprint was in vogue (and would do so again at the drop of a hat).
As Chris says above, the ‘Play did the Natural History Museum last night. Considering they were in Dubai the other day, the must either have one of those Harry Potter teleportation chimneys, or be evil planet-destroying hypocrites.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50556916
Ah, Dubai – the environmentalist’s destination of choice, always.
Guitar-slinger-wordsmith Peter Mulvey has been doing annual bicycle tours of the US since the mid 2000s – the odd train but mostly a heavy duty bike with all his gear and then a show that night.