Greenerati

Rock ‘n’ roll, rap, hip hop, and funk filled the air of the Outside Lands festival but while the throngs packed San Francisco’s great Golden Gate Park, we took time from the audio overload to explore the some of the green aspects of the festival.

It actually didn’t take long as a set of solar panels sat just outside the main entrance. After that, we hit the Eco Lands. The PG&E sponsored area offered up booths (organic farmers market, solar cell and wind powered phone charging station), tents, exhibits (like solar education classes) that one doesn’t normally see in a rock ‘n’ roll venue. We grabbed an Eco Lands Passport, an inspiration from Jack Johnson’s All At Once Community, where green minded rockers could obtain “stamps” for doing certain activities such as as recycling cell phones, using the bike valet (we did), to calculate your carbon footprint, or donate to a non-profit so they could could win concert tickets and other green schwag.

We found ourselves super impressed with the Panhandle Stage not only because we saw the politically and socially charged K’Naan here but the stage actually ran on solar. That’s right, all the amps, mikes, lights, everything off the grid.

Not until the event concluded did we even realize that people could win prizes for recycling bottles and cups. If we would have picked up 250 bottles then we could have snagged some organic jeans. It didn’t seem like many people knew about this eco-barter system. Too bad because a lot of plastic littered the grounds over the three days.

We’re already psyched not only for an even greener version of Outside Lands 2009 but for other event concerts and what green, social and political action they will take to raise the bar.