Radiohead back green credentials of Glastonbury

United Kingdom | | 13 March 2008

Singer Thom Yorke has issued a statement in support of the festival after a tabloid newspaper suggested his band snubbed this year's festival because too many people drove to it.

Radiohead recently stated that they will now only play at events which aren't reliant on car travel, in a move designed to highlight environmental awareness.

According to Yorke, The Sun misquoted him and made a tenacious link between the band's environmental stand-point and the fact they were not playing at Worthy Farm this June.

He has now moved to clear up any misunderstanding and thrown his support behind Glastonbury, where around a third of fans arrive by public transport every year.

His online blog reads: "A week or so ago i helped launch a campaign in europe with Friends of the Earth to get citizens in countries throughout europe to ask for their governments to commit in law to reducing carbon emmisions.
it was a very encouraging but very full on day.. i never sleep the day before such things.

anyway,

the last thing i did was talk to a UK newspaper called the SUn, which is owned by one of my least favourite people Rupert Murdoch. In the course of the interview i mentioned that we had a carbon footprint study commisioned and the biggest shock was the significance of the all travel to the show by the audience.
as we have said before we are trying to concentrate as much as we can on playing places with some form of transport infrastructure other than cars.. and encouraging you lot as politely as we can without sounding preachy to consider car sharing if other things are not available. it is difficult to know how best to go about this. especially when we are going to have use planes to travel during the tour when there is no alternative. cue endless meetings and scratching of heads.

I also mentioned that we were not playing Glastonbury this year but were doing our own shows in London.
Not because of transport issues but because the festival goers at Glastonbury were more than likely sick of the sight of us.. it felt a little early to be doing it again, we felt as if we had only just played there.

unfortunately, as is the way with such newspapers my words were taken out of context and implied we were not playing Glastonbury because there was no public transport infrastructure. well that's bollocks.

but these things spread.

i have been talking to the Eavis's about this and apologised for any misunderstanding and they are totally cool with it.
Today Emily & Michael sent me though some stuff about how they are trying to minimise car use as much as they can.. with buses and train trips etc.
To be honest its pretty impressive. They have obviously been busting a gut about it. I wish more people were thinking as hard them.

Like the government for example.

There is a bit from the statement they sent below

All power to them. Have good Glastonbury and maybe see you there in 2009. ? maybe?

We will keep you posted about plans for our shows."

Last year around 47,500 fans arrived at Glastonbury by public transport, mainly by coach and train. Organisers also encourage fans to car share. Find out more HERE. 

Tomorrow is the last day for registration to this year's festival, which takes place at Worthy Farm, Pilton, from 27-29 June. Click HERE for more.
 

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