The Echo Project looks like a great event, with an impressive lineup.  I'm not crazy about the headliners, but the second-stringers are all acts I'd love to see (or see again):  moe., thievery corp., michael franti, spoon (don't those boys sleep?), and for the hip-hop-headz Cypress Hill and GZA.  I wish I could go.

Even cooler is the total commitment to the environment.  This is what the Monolith festival would have looked like if it had really tried to live up to its own hype. The festival still isn't perfect, but it's a damn sight better than most of the others I've seen, Bonaroo excepted.  Check it out:

• They hired Sustainable Waves to help them do the right thing.  Consultants aren't cure-alls, but the fact that they went out and got somebody good to help them along shows a commitment and maturity that a lot of festivals are lacking.
• Before the festival--which sits on the vanks of the Chatahoochee River in Georgia--begins, they're asking the audience to help in a massive river cleanup.  This is great, and I hope that fans respond well and other festivals follow the lead.  Volunteering is a great way to build community, and while that may sound like hippie-speak, think about it:  do you love festivals just because of the music, or do you also enjoy the sense of community you get at a festival that you can't get anywhere else?  I know that I'm into the festival scene as much for the crowd as I am for the music, and I think that's true of a lot of other people, too.  Even if only 10% of the audience participates, they'll still have thousands of volunteers working together to clean up the river.
• They have a solar stage, also provided by Sustainable Waves.  Bonnaroo had one of these, too--hopefully we'll see them get bigger in the future as more people ask for them. 
  
• They're doing all the usual offsetting, recycling, etc.  Again, I don't care for offsets, but at least they're trying.
  

Could this festival do more?  Sure, but they're off to a great start.  If they took the local food/composting aspect of Farm Aid and the composting toilets of Peats Ridge, I think they'd be getting close to maxed out on the green card.

Also, check out this interview with the festival's promoter, 25-year-old Nicolas Bouckaert, whose family owns the farm the festival is being held on.