Va. band uses bicycle-powered stage at Rhode Island festival
NEWPORT, R.I. — The Newport Folk Festival, known for creating electrifying musical moments — the most famous being Bob Dylan’s decision to plug in his guitar in 1965 — had a small outer stage over the weekend that was powered in part by festivalgoers on stationary bicycles.
The Bike Stage is the brainchild of the band Illiterate Light, an environmentally conscious indie rock duo from Virginia, which has partnered with a company called “Rock the Bike” to create a pedal-powered sound system, which they have already been using at small club shows.
Frontman Jeff Gorman said the “Bike Stage” at the event in Rhode Island is the first time the system has been tried at a festival. About a dozen artists were scheduled to perform mostly acoustic sets on the stage.
About 1,300 of the festival’ s 10,000 fans rode bicycles Friday to Newport. Gorman said when he saw that sea of bikes during the band’s appearance in Newport in 2019, he and partner Jake Cochran approached festival director Jay Sweet about setting up the stage.
“It’s a way for them to just do something different and for us to start the conversation around energy use, and just thinking differently and trying out new ways of creating electricity,” Gorman said.
The stage was equipped with solar panels to provide most of the power to the equipment, with the bikes providing the rest.
As the show began, fans jumped onto five bicycles adjacent to the tent. The pedaling generates electricity, which is fed through through wires to an electrical box on the stage.
With temperatures in the upper 80s, fans took turns pedaling for about five minutes during the 20-minute sets. In exchange, they’d get a few spritzes of water from a spray bottle, a free can of iced tea and a frontrow view of the performance.
Gorman said Illiterate Light was among the first of a group of bands that have been trying to find ways to make their shows more environmentally friendly.
Coldplay harnesses energy from a kinetic dance floor at their shows and also uses stationary bikes to store some power.
“We don’t want people to spend their fun weekend having to sweat their butt off,” Gorman said. “But we do think its fun to be able to jump up for five minutes and have that experience of making this music happen.”