Lighten Up: Phish

At Phish’s 2009 reunion festival in Indio, California, almost fifty thousand devotees congregated among the desert mountains to revel in the jam band’s free-form sounds. As we all know, the environmental impact of such a gathering is nothing to slouch at. One of the things we love about this band is they — and their fans — have always had a staunch commitment to ecological responsibility. They’ve worked with Reverb for years to mitigate their waste and have an incredible fan-based initiative to help keep the footprint down. Phish Festival 8 took it to another level. With a rideshare program, an onsite farmers’ market, a crew of green volunteers picking up garbage and sorting recycling, and the WaterWheel Foundation collecting donations for charity, this show had it’s eco bases covered. We were there to check it all out.