Stage presents

I love it when pop culture and ethical consumerism converge.

Last weekend brought one of the best live-music shows I've ever attended: the Swell Season. The music was sublime, and speaking between the songs, Glen Hansard was as honest and unguarded as you'd imagine he'd be among a small group of friends, never mind the nearly full theater's capacity of 3,000.

At the merch table afterward, I was pleased to see that the band was selling organic cotton T-shirts (did you know that conventional cotton is responsible for some 16 percent of global chemical pesticide use?), canvas tote bags, and metal water bottles sporting their cool owl logo. Clearly this is a group interested in promoting greater environmental consciousness.

The water bottles particularly struck me, because I had noticed during the show that the band members were drinking standard bottled water. Wouldn't it be amazing to see major touring musicians sipping from reusable containers onstage instead of plastic water bottles? What a nice quiet statement that would make against bottled water's numerous problems (the wastefulness of its production and disposal, the health issues, etc.). I asked the guy who sold me my T-shirt to pass an encouraging word on to the band.

The following day, there was a coda to the theme. I heard a cool song on the radio called "Garbage," by Chairlift. I'll close by sharing some of the lyrics:

All the garbage that you have thrown away
Is waiting somewhere a million miles away
Your condoms and your VCR
Your ziploc bags and father's car
Dark and silent it waits for you ahead

So much garbage will never ever decay
And all your garbage will outlive you one day
You should sign a fancy signature to your messy messy portraiture
Because dark and silent it waits for you ahead

Making so much garbage each and every day
We make this shit for you to throw away
In plastic rooms in factories for you to dispose of as you please
Because dark and silent it waits for you ahead

Comments

[Zoecello]

This is such a deep topic! I think the main problem is that touring bands don't control their working or living environment.

Here are some perhaps little-known logistical facts about touring bands:

Mid-size to major bands live on buses:

- They sleep on the bus, and when the bus arrives at the venue in the morning or afternoon, for the most part they are in the venue until after the show.

- Buses don't have potable water.

- Buses are designed to hold lots of small beverages (um, beer and soda) in tiny little drawers. There is very little space for large gallon jugs.

- A tour bus might have up to 12 people living on it (pity them).

Bands & crew need water:

- They need water to drink at the show, during the day, overnight on the bus & to brush their teeth.

- Water comes as part of the band's pay in their hospitality rider, which is in their show contract and provided at each gig by the promoter. This water has to last all day and last until the next gig.

- Extra water comes directly from the band, in the form of money that the tour manager gives to the bus driver to keep the bus stocked with creature comforts (like coffee & cereal).

- With rare exception, venues only have bottled water, or maybe the dressing room has a faucet in the bathroom.

That should give you some sense of the amount of water consumed by a band each day. Its a bit like camping, but without ever going outside and with strangers providing you with food and drink.

Venues already stock cases and cases of small bottles of water because they sell them to the public. Those cases are invariably what the band gets as their daily water ration. Eco-minded bands who are in demand might outfit their crew with metal bottles and specify that drinking water must be in multi-gallon jugs. The promoter will send out a runner to buy these along with the rest of the catering. Venues already stock the bottles, so those are practically free and you can get as much as you want. But the giant jugs are bought retail by the runner and there are never enough. Maybe things are different for the Dave Matthews Band, but on all the tours I've been on, but there always seems to be a water shortage.

Say you have a metal bottle and you do our best to keep track of it as you move all your stuff in and out of a new venue every day.... you've still got to keep it filled and keep it nearby. The bottle might be in the dressing room, while you are onstage, or your bottle is on the bus and you are trapped backstage, or you've got your bottle, but the water jugs are in someone else's dressing room, or the ones on the bus are empty...you get the picture.

I can't tell you how awful it is to wake up in the middle of the night on a long drive across some endless stretch of country. You're parched and the only thing to drink on the bus is beer. Everyone starts hoarding plastic bottles in their bunks. No matter how well intentioned the whole operation starts, by the end of the tour everyone is pretty focused on trying to survive: get enough sleep and food, and not lose their shit (both physically and psychologically)....and something like keeping track of a water bottle, and keeping it filled, just doesn't register. Little plastic bottles take over.

So the bottom line: bands & crew don't control their working or living environment, and that environment is what needs fixing. I think most people on business trips would never put up with an office or hotel that doesn't have potable water! In a venue its often easier to get a beer than a glass of water.

- Venues should have water dispensers backstage

- Dressing rooms need to have water taps (often they don't have sinks).

- Buses should have potable water

Writing this is making me thirsty. I'm going to get a drink of water right now!