This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Trends, Intersections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Oscar week got off to an early start Wednesday night with a music-themed party honoring (we think) our beloved planet Earth. The 5th annual Global Green Pre-Oscar Party featured performances by Michelle Branch, Damien Rice, Oscar-nominated duo Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from “Once” and Michael Franti.
Branch’s performance proved the highlight of the evening, with a set heavy on new material, including “Long Goodbye,” her song with Dwight Yoakam from her forthcoming full-length. Branch, wearing a white silk dress, also offered up a nice rendition of Tom Petty’s “You Wreck Me” for the crowd, which seemed heavy on agents (or just guys who could afford the tickets) and their much younger dates. And Adrian Grenier was there too, lest you think only agents care about the environment.
And while Soundboard loved the sustainable decor (synthetic grass made from soy, plants and trees everywhere, carpet made from recycled plastic bottles, etc.) and applauds the $420,000 raised from said ticket sales for sponsor Global Green’s climate initiatives, we side with the MC of the event, Bill Maher. As Maher said from the stage before introducing Branch, one of the apparent causes of global warming is eating meat. We’re not sure if the turkey-loving comedian was referencing this, but some of the hors d’oeuvres being passed around were meat (even if it was organic). It was a grim reminder, to paraphrase Maher, that eating a Whopper is worse for the environment than driving a decade-old SUV during rush hour. Nothing like industrial meat talk to liven up a party, eh?
At a similar green-minded event earlier this week hosted by Live Earth, featuring “A Thousand Miles” singer Vanessa Carlton, scant few vegetarian (and no vegan) offerings were served to the crowd there to gawk at the eco-friendly “for two” Smart Car. Instead, massive skewers of steak and shrimp were seemingly everywhere. My vegan friend in attendance was mortified.
It seems the green movement, in Hollywood party-planning circles, at least, has some kinks to work out; especially given the large number of raw and vegan catering services in town who likely would have been thrilled to provide tasty and politically correct snacks.
- Charlie Amter
Photo of Michelle Branch by Stephen Shugerman / Getty Images.
