Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson and Mojave 3
at The Eden Project

A weekend whose weather was as glorious as the football was abject was the perfect setting for the first two shows of the 2010 Eden Sessions.

Hawaiian surf hero Jack Johnson, ably supported by Newquay’s own Mojave 3, kicked the summer off in fine style with a sell-out show that must rank as one of the most laid-back, relaxed Sessions we’ve ever seen. A crowd of nearly 6,000 – most of whom looked like they’d just come from the beach – were filing in when we first met Jack and his wife Kim to talk about Eden’s Gardens for Life project and have a quick tour of our global garden.

Jack and Kim’s charity the Johnson Ohana Charitable Fund donated $5000 to Gardens for Life last year and they took the opportunity to chat with Eden’s Howard Jones and Rob Lowe, who run the programme. Gardens for Life offers children everywhere the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience of growing with their counterparts from around the world, with thousands of children across four continents taking part.

We also took the opportunity to tell Jack about our environmentally-friendly surfboards, a story that started with a balsa board made from a tree from Eden’s Rainforest Biome. Eden eco-boards – 50 per cent of which are made from sustainable materials – are now available to buy, and Eden chief executive Tim Smit presented Jack with a fish board to surf while he was in Cornwall.

As for the show, it was a masterclass in surfy acousto-pop and the crowd loved every minute of it. Jack had some good-natured banter with the crowd, including an amusing interlude about love-handles, and the mood around the site was as good-natured as it has been for any Eden Session.