“If you want to see something that represents the most ridiculous human behavior, this is right there,” said Massive Attack.
Coachella, the music festival in Indio, California, is known for bringing together the really big names in the music industry at their event. Massive Attack were also asked by the organizers for the next festival slide 205. But the trip-hop duo declined to perform at the Bombast Open Air in the USA. The reason for this: Coachella is not a good thing for the environment. The Sphere also joined in their blasphemy.
Coachella’s handling of the environment is “crazy”
“We canceled Coachella for next year because we were already there once and that was enough,” said Robert “3D” Del Naja in a conversation with NME published on December 17th. And further: “It’s in Palm Springs. It is a golf resort built in the desert and operates with a sprinkler system that utilizes the public water supply. Crazy. If you want to see something that represents the most ridiculous human behavior, it’s right there.”
This is what it looks like at Coachella:
Massive Attack’s Coachella performance in 2006:
Massive Attack would also not appear in The Sphere
The Bristol group has long been committed to minimizing the carbon footprint of large live concerts. Not only does a festival in the desert fit into their plans, but also a gig in The Sphere in Las Vegas – the spherical multi-purpose hall whose facade serves as an animation area using LED paneling. Del Naja told NME: “Of course I would love to get my hands on so many LEDs! Tons of spherical LEDs to play with. […] What a brilliant piece of infrastructure in the worst possible place – in the worst environment in the world.”
About future plans and new music
The 59-year-old also spoke about the future plans for Massive Attack in the “NME” interview. Accordingly, the band has been wanting to release their new songs for four years and is hoping to actually be able to do so in 2025. According to Del Naja, the fact that this hasn’t happened yet is due to a “dispute with the label”. However, the musician deliberately left out what exactly the feud was about in the conversation. “That’s a whole different article.”
Massive Attack will also visit Germany in 2025. Two concerts are planned in this country: on July 7, 2025 in Bonn and on July 8, 2025 in Berlin.