Bands plan ‘green' day

Bands plan ‘green' day at OU

By Gene Triplett
Entertainment Editor

Don't try to tell Adam Gardner it's not easy being green, even if your name is Kermit.

The singer-guitarist is on one of the greenest tours on the rock 'n' roll landscape with his bandmates in Guster, spreading the good word about eco-friendliness among college students far and wide. On Tuesday, it's the University of Oklahoma's turn to learn a new thing or two about saving the environment when the Campus Consciousness tour arrives in Norman for a day of activities, culminating in a concert at 7 p.m. in the Lloyd Noble Center, starring Guster and guest The Format.

"The goal of the tour is to spread environmental awareness to college students,” Gardner said, "to educate and invigorate them toward environmental issues.”

The tour is a project of Reverb, a nonprofit organization founded by Gardner and his wife, environmentalist Lauren Hutton, in 2004. The first campus tour was mounted in 2006, using buses running on clean-burning bio-diesel fuel. In addition, every Guster concert was made "carbon neutral” through the purchase of renewable energy credits from the American Indian-owned NativeEnergy. Through the band's offset program, more than 2,100 tons of carbon dioxide were neutralized on the tour — the equivalent of not driving 4.2 million miles.

"Through our program on tour, 230,000 kilowatt-hours of clean, renewable energy were put back into the grid, which is equivalent to powering 21 homes for an entire year,” Gardner said. "And that was just the first year. This year, we're going to do even more. It's going to be even bigger and greener.”

Tuesday's activities will kick off at 2:30 p.m. at the Oklahoma Memorial Union with a "Town Hall Forum” organized by Campus Climate Challenge and the Sustainable Endowments Institute, where students, faculty, campus organizations and Guster will discuss sustainable choices colleges and universities can make in resource management. Attendees will be entered into a raffle to win a meet-and-greet with Gardner and bandmates Ryan Miller, Brian Rosenworcel and Joe Pisapia after the concert.

Other attractions include a "Consciousness Pavilion” displaying environmental products and innovations, and a "Pimp My Clean Ride” tour of Guster's bio-diesel bus, with all of its eco-friendly provisions.

"We're using rechargeable batteries now, onstage,” Gardner said. "We're using post-consumer, recyclable paper for the buses, like toilet paper, paper towels. We're offering eco-friendly merchandise. We'll have organic cotton T-shirts, we're using aluminum water bottles that are refillable, for band and crew, instead of individual plastic bottles that create a lot of waste.”

Visitors may also donate food to local food banks at the event.

"Last year, the students donated 20,000 meals to local food banks through our program on the tour,” Gardner said.

When the Boston-based, melody-minded alternative pop band isn't crusading under its own banner, Guster, working through Reverb, is helping other artists turn their tours green, including The Dave Matthews Band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, Jack Johnson, Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies and Bonnie Raitt.

"We're actually out there in the trenches, talking to people at shows,” Gardner said. "And the first year it was like, ‘Aw, I don't believe in global warming; that's a bunch of hooey.' And now I think that people are starting to realize that the consensus is it's real and the debate is over. Now, what do we do about it?”