Music

The Flaming Lips, Sheryl Crow, the Roots Lead New Climate-Themed Festival This Fall

The Flaming Lips, Sheryl Crow, the Roots, and more will play a climate action concert at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium this September.

The 3-day festival, dubbed The Big Climate Thing, will take place September 16 -18, with a goal to raise awareness and take action on the climate crisis. The lineup also includes Haim, the Weather Station, Sunflower Bean, Khruangbin, Courtney Barnett, Princess Nokia, Gary Clark Jr., and more.

“I think music, along with all the cultural industries, have spent way too long sitting back on this issue,” the Weather Station’s Tamara Lindeman tells Rolling Stone. “I believe music plays a primarily emotional role in people’s lives, and as such I think it has huge potential in pushing us to recognize our tangled emotions around this topic. When I imagine a stadium full of people coming together for a climate event centered on music, what I imagine is an enormous opportunity to feel a solidarity that has been so missing here. I truly hope that an enormous in-person event can have some power to bring people together and create some common experience around climate, and push those in attendance to examine their climate feelings and push through them enough to act.”

“I believe that music is one of the most powerful communication tools we have on this planet, way deeper than just words could ever express,” added Sunflower Bean’s Julia Cumming. “Music has to power to influence people’s decisions by touching their hearts and relating to them on the human condition. We are all facing the same problem: this is all our home and it happens to be on fire. If we can figure out how to properly utilize music in this era of the climate crisis, I know more good could be done.”

The event will be hosted by Climate Control Projects in partnership with Brian Eno’s EarthPercent. Tickets go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. Three-day passes cost $268, while single-day passes go for $119.