AUSSIE 'DANCE MONKEY' SINGER SHOOTS FROM BUSKING TO GLOBAL SUCCESS
British band Coldplay on Friday won plaudits for shelving a new album tour over environmental concerns, in the latest sign of climate change activism in the music industry.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) praised the move, as the group released its latest album - Everyday Life - with only two gigs, both in the Jordanian capital Amman.
The performances, staged at sunrise and sunset without an audience, were broadcast free on YouTube.
"It is fantastic to see world famous artists stepping up to protect the planet," said the head of climate change at WWF, Gareth Redmond-King.
"We all have a responsibility to lead by example in the face of this climate and nature crisis - inaction is not an option if we are to preserve our planet for future generations."
Coldplay frontman Chris Martin told the BBC they would not tour until they had figured out how concerts could be more ‘sustainable’.
He listed the amount of flying required and the use of items such as plastic water bottles as the band's primary concerns over touring.
Activists say international music tours impact heavily on the environment, with concern about the amount of electricity used to power stadiums to waste generated by concert-goers.
Coldplay played 122 shows around the world across eight legs
Coldplay's decision is the latest example of bands and the wider entertainment industry responding to growing concern about the climate crisis.
US teenage sensation Billie Eilish revealed last month that she had tried to make her world tour "as green as possible" with the help of a nonprofit consultancy.
The singer told chat-show host Jimmy Fallon she had banned plastic straws and urged fans to bring their own refillable water bottles and to utilise recycling bins at venues.
On her next world tour starting in March, every site will feature an ‘eco-village’ where concert
Australian pop hit Dance Monkey is topping global charts and has spent a record 16 weeks at number one Down Under, propelling teenager Toni Watson from busking obscurity to instant fame.
Just months ago the 19 year old, known by the stage name Tones and I, was living in a van and singing on the street in the coastal town of Byron Bay, south of Brisbane.
Now her latest release has reached number one in 18 countries including Britain, France and Germany, as well as at home where it broke the record held by Ed Sheeran's 2017 smash Shape of You, which spent 15 weeks at the top spot.
Before her debut single Johnny Run Away came out in March, Toni had spent a year playing her keyboard in public, too nervous to speak as part of the tour for its last album, A Head Full of Dreams. “If the band does eventually hit the road for the new release, we hope the tour could be entirely carbon neutral,” Martin said.
The band is set to perform another one-off concert next Monday at London's Natural History Museum, with the proceeds donated to an environmental charity.
Cleaning up their acts
goers can learn about environmentalism, she said.
Meanwhile The 1975, another British band, which this year collaborated with Swedish climate change icon Greta Thunberg, is also trying to move towards carbon-neutral touring.
It pledged in September to plant a tree for every ticket sold ahead of its upcoming tour of Britain and Ireland.
Teenage activist Greta refuses to fly because of the carbon emissions involved. In September, she travelled to a UN climate conference in New York by boat. She is currently sailing back to Europe.
In Britain, live music events account for 405,000 tonnes of greenhouse emissions, according to the campaign group Global Citizen, which stages its own zero-waste festivals.
Powerful Thinking, a think-tank focused on the festival industry, estimates the events generate some 23,500 tonnes of waste each year in the country.
This has led dozens of Britain's biggest festivals to try to clean up their acts, initiating everything from bans on single-use plastic to using renewable energy sources.
The UK Music umbrella group representing the industry said 3.9mn people attended festivals in Britain in 2016.
Glastonbury Festival, staged every June on a farm in western England, is partnering with charities such as Greenpeace, Oxfam and WaterAid to improve its sustainability.
Organisers even deployed portable toilets that utilise technology to convert urine into electricity at this year's festival. to passersby between songs.
But while she is now selling out shows worldwide, the singer says she looks back on those days with fondness. "When I was busking, when I was paying for petrol with silver coins or when I was sneaking into hostels so I could park my van up and sleep in it, I had the best time of my life," she told Nova radio.
Dance Monkey has racked up more than 500mn plays on Spotify and is the first Australian tune to peak at number one on the streaming service's Global Top 50 chart.
It has even begun to infiltrate the tough North American music world - it is number two in Canada and 23 in the US, where it jumped 18 places from the previous week.
Although Toni’s rapid rise has been fuelled by online platforms, Dance Monkey relates the challenges she encountered as a busker trying to capture attention from audiences distracted by smartphones and social media.
"People were so used to being able to swipe to see something different to entertain themselves that the patience had diminished," she told triple j radio. "You have to be quick... get on with the song."
Toni signed with Warner Chappell Music in August and returned to Byron Bay that month to play at a local music festival.
Her midday set drew a crowd of 20,000 people - a record for an opening act - dwarfing anything she ever may have imagined just a year earlier.