Correction: All ages allowed and there is a $10 ticket price.
Wednesday Sep 8, 7:30AM @ 2640 (2640 St. Paul St.)
Tonight we welcome cellist, vocalist and songwriter Ben Sollee! Named one of the year’s best unknown artists by NPR in 2007, Ben has since then garnered a national reputation for his percussive playing style, political activism, and unusual approach to touring. In 2009, hestrapped his cello to the back of a bicycle and rode from his home in Lexington, Kentucky to Bonnaroo, playing small towns along the way.
He knew he was onto something, taking the idea one step further and exploring 500 miles of the East Coast Greenway touring between Wilmington, NC and Jacksonville, Fla. a few months later for his winter tour. This year, Sollee takes on his largest challenge yet – the Ditch the Van Tour 2010, a transcontinental endeavor not reliant on the traditional modes of touring. Four regional tours, in which all touring members ride without the use of support vehicles, are linked together from San Diego on August 18th and ending in the capital of his beloved Commonwealth October 8th.
$10 ticket price. Special thanks to One Less Car, Joe Squared and the Young Sierrans for helping make this show possible!
www.bensollee.com
onelesscar.org
maryland.sierraclub.org/baltimore/youngsierrans/
The Ditch the Van Tour is about much more than going car-free though. Sure, it’s a reaction to the massive carbon footprint that many tours leave behind (particularly the fleet of 53′ trucks required to haul an elaborate U2 stage) and an awareness-raising project for the nation’s elaborate series of Adventure Cycling-advocated bike highways and communities where bike infrastructure is lacking. However, Ben also sees the bike tour as an opportunity to acquaint himself with a myriad of towns and communities across our nation – a “beautiful limitation” he calls it – that can only present itself when you slow down the pace of life by traveling by bike rather than bus or plane, as Ben tells National Geographic in a recent interview: “It’s not about trying to be ‘green’ – whatever that means these days – and saving the environment. It’s about pace of life and re-localizing. I’ve spent nearly ten years on the road now and the expectations of the industry are enormous. When you get a call the night before to play late-night TV the next day on the other side of the country you do it. If there’s a good money gig but it’s 300 miles the other way, you do it. But not if you’re on a bicycle. It’s a beautiful limitation, because all the reasons you once thought of to avoid these small towns go out the window and the communities become really valuable to us.” Ben’s tour is sponsored by Kentucky Coffeetree, Adventure Cycling and the League of American Bicyclists.
Continue reading “Ben Sollee and The Ditch the Van Tour comming to Baltimore”
