Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 12 hours ago
When the lights come up after a concert, you're often left walking through a "sea of plastic". For musician Adam Gardner, the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, REVERB, who's been in a band for 34 years, that sight became impossible to ignore. After complaining one too many times to his wife, an environmental professional, she gave him some simple advice: "Well then do something about it".
So he did.
In this clip, Gardner explains how a single tour with Alanis Morissette and Bare Naked Ladies in 2004 blossomed into a movement that has now greened over 300 tours and 7,000 concerts. His latest focus is the Music Decarbonization Project, which tackles one of live music's biggest climate problems: the dirty diesel generators that power festival stages.
He reveals how his team proved that cleaner alternatives are ready for the main stage by a daring feat:
• Challenge: Power Billie Eilish's headline set at Lollapalooza.
• Solution: They set up a temporary solar farm in Grant Park and used battery power for her entire performance.
• Result: The experiment was a massive success. Lollapalooza has continued to battery-power its main stage, and Gardner's project has now helped power over 300 major festival headline sets without diesel.
Discover how one musician's commitment is creating systemic change, proving that the future of live music can be clean, powerful, and sustainable.
When the lights come up after a concert, you're often left walking through a "sea of plastic". For musician Adam Gardner, the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, REVERB, who's been in a band for 34 years, that sight became impossible to ignore. After complaining one too many times to his wife, an environmental professional, she gave him some simple advice: "Well then do something about it".
So he did.
In this clip, Gardner explains how a single tour with Alanis Morissette and Bare Naked Ladies in 2004 blossomed into a movement that has now greened over 300 tours and 7,000 concerts. His latest focus is the Music Decarbonization Project, which tackles one of live music's biggest climate problems: the dirty diesel generators that power festival stages.
He reveals how his team proved that cleaner alternatives are ready for the main stage by a daring feat:
• Challenge: Power Billie Eilish's headline set at Lollapalooza.
• Solution: They set up a temporary solar farm in Grant Park and used battery power for her entire performance.
• Result: The experiment was a massive success. Lollapalooza has continued to battery-power its main stage, and Gardner's project has now helped power over 300 major festival headline sets without diesel.
Discover how one musician's commitment is creating systemic change, proving that the future of live music can be clean, powerful, and sustainable.
