Band hope Clifton Down gig will change music industry

Massive Attack helped redefine British music within the Nineteen Nineties. Now the seminal Bristol band try to alter the music business’s document on local weather motion, which they are saying has been caught for too lengthy.

Massive Attack hope their followers will not discover a lot uncommon about their mini-festival this weekend – their first present of their residence metropolis for 5 years.

“If it goes in response to plan, it’s going to simply really feel like a traditional gig to most individuals,” band member Robert Del Naja says.

“No-one will know the distinction. They will come to the gig, it’s going to rain, there shall be nice music, it will likely be a visible spectacle, they will go away and so they’re blissful.”

Fans would possibly spot a couple of modifications from different gigs, although.

All the meals shall be vegan. All the loos shall be compostable. If they’re actually observant, individuals would possibly spot (electrical) vans containing giant batteries often topping up different giant batteries across the website.

Perhaps the largest distinction won’t be within the present however exterior.

There’s no automotive park.

Instead, the 34,000 attendees are strongly inspired to stroll, cycle or get public transport – together with on one in all 5 particular trains laid on to take individuals again throughout the south-west on the finish of the financial institution vacation Sunday evening.

Massive Attack say the present would be the lowest-carbon live performance of its scale ever held, and wish it to supply a template for the remainder of the stay music business to observe.

“This experiment, by its very advantage of being right here, is hopefully going to create some exercise,” Del Naja says. “And it is a sector which has so much to say about local weather change, however sadly it is not doing a lot about it.”

In the 90s, Massive Attack led a wave of delirious downbeat dance music dubbed trip-hop in an space that noticed their two greatest hits – Unfinished Sympathy and Teardrop. Back then, few individuals gave severe thought to the environmental affect of touring.

“We’re very conscious of the polluting we have finished, which is why we’re doing this.”

Del Naja, also referred to as 3D, is the driving power behind the group’s drive to be as sustainable as attainable. Bandmate Grant Marshall, or Daddy G, is absolutely on board too.

Why do they really feel so strongly? “It’s easy,” Marshall says. “It’s as a result of there’s just one planet, and we have got to try to put it aside.

“Everybody is aware of what is going on on, and if we will do our bit to try to save one thing for the longer term, then it looks as if a no brainer.”

The Bristol live performance comes 5 years after Massive Attack commissioned the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to jot down a report setting out a roadmap for “tremendous low carbon stay music”. They are actually trying to place as a lot of that as attainable into observe.

Other measures being taken embrace:

• precedence ticket gross sales for Bristol residents
• free electrical shuttle buses to and from Bristol’s two predominant stations
• a separate bar and bathrooms as an incentive for individuals who have travelled from exterior Bristol by prepare
• website powered by renewable electrical energy
• all meals retailers are plant-based and with compostable cutlery and serving gadgets, with meals waste minimised, and nothing going to landfill

The band are dissatisfied by how a lot consideration others within the music business have paid to the analysis they commissioned.

“It’s been 5 years and no-one’s proven a lot curiosity,” Del Naja says. “A few bands, a few promoters, however little or no curiosity.

“In reality, most different promoters say ‘we have got our personal report’, which is barely ridiculous as a result of these studies are written by their very own group. So that is been actually fairly irritating.

“The different frustration is that there is a complete cluster of NGOs [non-governmental organisations] which were constructed over the past 10 years that take plenty of public cash to speak about how they could scale back emissions sooner or later, and to do affect studies. We’ve already finished an affect report. It’s publicly out there.

“You need not do one other affect report. We do not want any extra pledging. We need not take extra public cash to do that. It already it exists. The smartest thing to do is put it into motion. So I discover that irritating.

“But it additionally implies that the sector itself, and notably essentially the most highly effective brokers within the sector, the large promoters, do not get to do something. They can simply preserve parking it – one other 5 years, one other 5 years, whereas we write one other affect report.

“So we have tried to bypass that leap over all of it and simply put it as a lot into motion as we probably can.”

Other bands have been taking motion. Coldplay have mentioned their 12-step plan – together with eye-catching initiatives like a kinetic dancefloor and electricity-generating bicycles – minimize the carbon emissions of their final world tour by 59%.

Massive Attack say they’ve discovered methods to chop emissions on their present European tour, in addition to for the one-off Bristol present.

They have minimize down on tools in order that they take two vans on the highway as a substitute of the earlier six. “And we’re touring by prepare as a lot as we will throughout Europe,” Del Naja says.

“That’s the bit we’re making an attempt to do ourselves. And each competition we go to, we attempt to encourage the promoters to have a look at the expertise we have employed and we present them the Tyndall report.”

Even earlier than commissioning that analysis, they had been asking promoters to make modifications to chop emissions – such because the final time they headlined a mini-festival on Bristol’s Clifton Down, eight years in the past.

“We had our arguments then,” Del Naja says, however they had been met by “that worry of the underside line being affected by each determination you make”.

“It hasn’t been so tough this time,” he says.

They have now obtained others on board, like transport and energy corporations. GWR is laying on the additional late-night trains, and Ecotricity is supplying 100% renewable electrical energy to the batteries.

“I believe the one time we’ll realize it’s labored is once we stroll off stage and there is been no energy cuts in between,” Del Naja says.

“That’s going to be the second I’m ready for. We bow off stage, lights out, nice, no interruptions.”

More analysis shall be compiled afterwards about what labored and what didn’t, which Del Naja hopes shall be “transformational” for the business.

The present is pioneering for the best way it’s making an attempt to mix a variety of environmentally-friendly measures, in response to Adam Corner, a Bristol-based author and researcher on local weather and tradition.

Many of the applied sciences and strategies have been tried out by different festivals and occasions. Some, like placing on particular late trains, are extra uncommon.

“It showcases what’s attainable, as a result of there’s been a bit of little bit of commentary from individuals saying, properly it is nice they’re doing it, however are you able to replicate it for different exhibits?” he says.

Many individuals within the music and artistic industries agree that issues might and must be improved – and a few artists, organisers and our bodies have been making an attempt for years – however progress has been sluggish, he says.

“Other industries have gotten clearer plans and central targets, so you may see progress being made. Whereas, I believe with a lot of particular person [music] occasions and acts, it has been slower for all this to return collectively and be co-ordinated.

“So the extra that we will see all of the items of the puzzle in place, and what that appears like, it actually does assist present different occasions what’s attainable – with out essentially assuming that everybody can do all of it right away.

“Someone must go first in placing all the items of the puzzle collectively.”