Franti Guides The Festival Community Toward A Philanthropic Path

“Spearhead front man talks about the impact the festival community has on the environment and politics”

by Christopher Gaspar

“Here we have this great community of festival goers. My favorite time of the year is the time around the end of may and beginning of June and you go out to these festivals and see all these familiar faces you haven't seen for maybe five or six months and you say hi, check in and see what they've been doing over the year. So, now that we have this vibrant festival community, let's take some responsibility for what we are doing when we put on a festival in a beautiful natural environment. We have to think about groups like Rock The Earth and what we can do to leave the smallest footprint possible when we depart from these events. Then when we leave here we should try to carry out that eco-consciousness through our daily lives day by day within our homes and also what we do politically.” “That’s where HeadCount comes in. Now we have this this mid-term election coming up and a lot of people are feeling like we're not electing a new president, we're kind of stuck for the next two or three years and it's a difficult time right now; so why vote? What those of us who are involved with HeadCount are saying is that these mid-term elections are really important and can set the tone for the next presidential election. If we can make some change in this country now, we can set a precedent for what's going to happen in 2008. These elections are really important, so we telling everybody to register to vote, and come November go out and make sure that the festival community is heard as much as the religious right, the gun lobby, the healthcare lobby as anything else. We have just as much a right to be there expressing our views about how to take care of this country.”