There are still a few news sources suggesting that The Who are playing a part in
the Live Earth Festival. We are not, but this should not be taken as a rebuff, we know what the organizers are trying to achieve. We were not invited. We are playing at Roskilde in Denmark, and so have not had to do what most participants must have done, which is to work out how to balance the Ying against the Yang of the whole thing. Festivals are energy consuming, but at least they involve gatherings of large numbers of real people coming together in a common cause, with joy, humour and optimism.
If you don't know who (WHO) Pete Townshend is, please stop reading this blog.
In London change has been forced on us. Traffic Congestion charging is an extreme
way to get people to travel on trains and buses. It seems to be working. Many more people are riding push-bikes to work as well. I am not soft. I can ride a bike with little effort, even at 62 years old. I do love my car, but I don't mind walking or riding a bike. Roger and the band have made several long journeys on this European tour by train. I often use the train from my home town to central London. Once, when I mentioned the wonder of our local train service to Mick Jagger in a documentary, the British press took the piss. Better I buy a Hybrid car? Better I keep my old one and use it less I think.
But you don't need Pop Stars telling you how to save the planet. Neither do you need
news services telling you the uncaring, selfish Pete Townshend travels with seventy guitar cases. (I carry about fifteen). Exaggeration has always been my weakness. Seventy does sound better. It's just not true. But when the Live Earth events are cited in the same news services as producing as much carbon as Afghanistan, you can see how lazy web-'journalism' creates hysteria, anger and pointless jealousy. Someone else suggested we travel with 1,000 tons of equipment (this extrapolated from the earlier report that we had 1,000 cases). I think 1,000 tons might be the weight of a small aircraft carrier you chumps. We all want to do our bit. What about next tour we don't take the surface to air missiles?
This was weird.
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