Tony Hawk, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe set for Sunday's 'Pathway to Paris Earth Day 50' virtual festival

Tony Hawk, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe set for Sunday’s ‘Pathway to Paris Earth Day 50’ virtual festival

Tony Hawk arriving at the 92nd Academy Awards on Sunday, February 9, 2020 at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood.

The Sunday event, which will stream on Instagram Live, will also feature Ben Harper, Cat Power, Johnny Depp and more

San Diego Union-Tribune

April 24, 2020 3:05 PM PT

San Diego skateboard legend Tony Hawk will join a star-studded musical lineup that includes Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Patti Smith, Michael Stipe and Flea for this weekend’s “Pathway to Paris Earth Day 50: A Virtual Festival for Our Planet.”

The music-fueled event will begin Sunday at 1 p.m. PST and will exclusively stream on Instagram Live: @Pathway2Paris. Also scheduled to participate are Ben Harper, Cat Power, Johnny Depp, Tibetan singer Tenzin Choegyal and artists and athletes from various countries.

Pathway to Paris is an environmental advocacy group devoted to promoting renewable energy. Co-founded in 2014 by Rebecca Foon and Patti Smith’s daughter, Jesse, the nonprofit organization has held 11 fund-raising concerts in New York, Los Angeles, Montreal and Paris over the past six years. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Sunday’s event will be the first edition to take place online, rather than in a performance venue in front of a live audience.

In a statement released Wednesday, Pathway to Paris’ organizers said: “Climate change is a global concern, and we have seen with COVID-19 what can happen when the world truly works together to come up with solutions in a time of crisis.”

An enthusiastic music fan and longtime concert and festival attendee, Hawk appears to be the sole skateboarder in the lineup for “Pathway to Paris Earth Day 50.”

In November, the Carlsbad native was a gravity-defying star attraction in the lineup for the debut edition of San Diego’s three-day Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival. Hawk was also one of four investors and “event ambassadors” for Wonderfront, along with San Diego surfing icon Rob Machado, former Padres’ relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman and lone-named vocal star Miguel.

Hawk, 51, is no stranger to environmental causes. In 2018, he was the announcer at a Los Angeles Pathway to Paris concert, for which the lineup featured Patti Smith, Flea, Eric Burdon, Talib Kweli, Lucinda Williams and others.

Music Things To Do

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”