Festival Fever

Bit of a hard slog these festivals. For the the tour crew, because it’s not wholly their own show, festivals bring their own technical and logistical challenges, a few more headaches and longer days. And it’s a bit trickier for Friends of the Earth too, harder work with a busier crowd in very high spirits.  Although still lovely people on the whole and receptive to what we’re doing as always, it gets a bit much chasing after revellers running around with our flags and dancing off with the life size silhouettes. 

Although, the funniest one yet, was when a chap in Dublin swayed patiently behind one of our silhouettes for some time, until we got a bit concerned and asked if we could help him. He was coherent enough to mumble that he thought it was the queue to exit the grounds,  so we gently pointed him in the right direction.

Excuse me if I’m not sounding my usual sparkly self, I'm still loving it ... Just feeling a bit fried like everyone on the tour now. After five weeks on the road, with only one more gig to play in Europe, home is definitely on all our minds.

Right where are we? We went to Westerpark on the 1^st July, which was gorgeous and sunny with a very chilled crowd. Have a look at the slideshow on flickr here to get a taste of the day. http://www.flickr.com/photos/11563222@N02/sets/72157605962101195/

Westerpark is a week long festival in Amsterdam with a great line up. REM were playing the day after Radiohead and dropped into our aftershow party to say hello to the band. Milieuedefensie, the Netherlands FoE did a cracking job despite the baking sun, that just made you want to hide in the shade with something long and cool. Waiting for final numbers from Ragna at FoE Netherlands but I’m confident we got around 900 signed to send off to Tweede Kamer. If you couldn’t get to the gig, sign your support online here....

 

From Amsterdam we drove through the night to Copenhagen . I was particularly excited about this one as I’m new to Denmark and had heard lots of good stuff about the green initiatives at Roskilde. Roskilde, not far from Copenhagen, has been home to this long standing festie since 1971 and has always attracted big names. Bob Marley played in ’78, Talking Heads in ’79, U2 in ’82 and Radiohead first played there back in 1997. It’s run primarily by volunteers and makes efforts to be as green as it can be, within the environmental challenges that putting on a festival presents. They also support initiatives in the local community. Take a look at their website for more info.

 

Our volunteers from NOAH were brilliant (I think we’ve been really lucky on this tour with the calibre of people that have been involved) and we signed over 2500 cards IN ONE DAY! Good work by Kim, Palle and their team.  Pictures here;

and video from the day at http://www.youtube.com/user/NOAHVISION

 

From Amsterdam it was onto Rock Werchter in Belgium on the 5^th July. Werchter, like Roskilde take a green approach to their festival and have a section on their website dedicated to explaining their ecological initiatives. You can even work out your very own festival footprint.  http://www.rockwerchter.be/RW2008/site/index.asp

 

I met up with the local Flanders and Brussels group and some familiar faces from our FoE Europe office in Brussels. David Hellar from the local group negotiated hard to get 30 volunteers into the festival, a real success to have so many of us.  They also secured a radio interview and an onsite TV  interview with the local music channel.  If you didn't get to Werchter take a minute to support their campaign at www.thebigask.be

 

Being one of the biggest festivals in Europe with a capacity of over 70,000, Werchter pulls in a diverse crowd, so we made sure we were armed and ready with postcards in English, French and Dutch. With over 3000 cards signed pretty much in one day, we were all quite satisfied, if somewhat muddy.

When is a festival not a festival?  when you’re not covered in mud.   

See you in Berlin.

 

Hannah Wylie, Friends of the Earth Europe Tour coordinator