Press
Photo of Adam, Chuck D and Erin Potts during the press conference, New York, 1997 by Danny Clinch
Coverage (select pieces)
Before Activism Had a Playlist, There Was the Tibetan Freedom Concert: Thirty years on, the podcast Freedom Needs a Soundtrack revisits the star-studded benefit that brought Tibet’s struggle to a mass audience” Rolling Stone Magazine.
Sound Up Podcast: Mark and Alan welcome Erin Potts and Deyden Tethong to talk about their new podcast “Freedom Needs a Soundtrack,” which looks back at the Tibetan Freedom concerts 30 years later.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
FREEDOM NEEDS A SOUNDTRACK
AN AUDIO DOCUMENTARY MARKING 30TH ANNIVERSARY
OF FIRST TIBETAN FREEDOM CONCERT
RADIO-READY HALF-HOUR VERSIONS OF ALL SIX EPISODES NOW AVAILABLE
FOR FREE ON PRX
LISTEN TO THE EPISODES HERE:
https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/listen
July 14, 2026 — Following its podcast debut, San Francisco's KALW Public Media has begun broadcasting the radio-ready edition of Freedom Needs a Soundtrack, a six-part documentary series marking the 30th anniversary of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. All six half-hour broadcast-ready episodes are now available free to noncommercial public radio stations through PRX.
The 28-minute broadcast episodes of Freedom Needs a Soundtrack are evergreen, and available to public radio stations for use as a special, arts and culture feature, music-adjacent program, public affairs or human rights story, summer limited series, or 2026 civic programming tied to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
Says the series’ co-creator and narrator and TFC co-founder Erin Potts, “It’s important for us to carry over the ethos of the concerts in the series. The first three Tibetan Freedom Concerts were all held in public parks and spaces, and they were built without corporate sponsors. Combined with the recent attacks on public media, that meant it was important to us to make this series ad-free, to have public media partners who could help keep it accessible and to offer a broadcast version of it for free to public radio stations.”
“Freedom Needs a Soundtrack is the exact kind of program we look to air and our audiences absolutely love it,” says KALW Executive Director, James Kass. “It’s the perfect mix of storytelling, music, and community organizing for our wide audience of music and culture lovers.”
The documentary series, which offers an immersive look back at how the concerts began, what they changed, and what their legacy offers today, debuted on June 15th, exactly 30 years after the first concert in San Francisco. Here is the breakdown of what you’ll hear…
Episode 1: The Power of Music Before the Tibetan Freedom Concerts became one of the biggest shows of the 1990s, teenage Erin Potts dreams of a concert for Tibet featuring her favorite band. Meanwhile, imprisoned Tibetan nun Ngawang Sangdrol reveals what it meant to resist from inside Tibet. Their stories meet in the same place: the power of music.
Episode 2: Inside Tibet After studying Tibetan in Nepal and meeting Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys in Kathmandu, Erin Potts travels inside Tibet for the first time. In Lhasa, she and her friend, Sam Chapin, leave their government-assigned tour, move into the Tibetan part of the city, and come face to face with life under Chinese occupation. When they witness a protest, tear gas, gunfire, and a violent police crackdown, they are left holding proof the world needs to see.
Episode 3: “Standing Up for Freedom” After protest photos and freedom songs are smuggled out of Tibet, Erin returns home, where a dinner with Adam Yauch transforms what she witnessed into a new kind of action. Together, they begin imagining what music, culture, and activism could do for Tibet, leading Erin to go on the 10-week Lollapalooza summer tour with the Beastie Boys and a group of Tibetan monks.
Episode 4: The First Concert After two years of near misses, Erin, Adam, and a young team of organizers finally bring the first Tibetan Freedom Concert to life, with one of the most talked-about lineups of the 1990s and a bold new model for turning music into action.
Episode 5: No Slowing Down The Tibetan Freedom Concerts head to New York, where the team faces slow ticket sales, city bureaucracy, and the pressure of turning one breakthrough concert into something bigger. But even as the concert nearly breaks them, U2’s surprise appearance fulfills Erin’s teenage promise and helps carry the movement toward Washington, D.C.
Episode 6: After the Storm Just two weeks before President Clinton’s trip to China, the D.C. concert becomes the biggest and most consequential yet. After lightning injures concertgoers, the movement carries its message to the Capitol, to Beijing and beyond. Erin and others look back on what it set in motion, and ahead to what the fight for freedom needs now- and why their story still matters today.
Some of the voices heard in the series through new interviews and archival tape include: Adam Yauch, Biz Markie, Björk, Bono, Dave Grohl, Deyden Tethong, Erin Potts, Flea, John Popper, Kurt Loder, Lhadon Tethong, Ngawang Sangdrol, Palden Gyatso, Sam Chapin, Thom Yorke, Tom Morello, Yoko Ono and others.
Freedom Needs A Soundtrack offers firsthand accounts from the people who lived the story, the series explores the concerts' origins, their lasting impact, and the relevance of their legacy today. Net proceeds from merchandise and related activities will directly benefit Students for a Free Tibet, Tibet Action Institute and others, continuing the mission that launched the concerts decades ago.
About Freedom Needs a Soundtrack
Thirty years ago, the Beastie Boys, U2, Rage Against the Machine, Björk, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, A Tribe Called Quest, and other major artists came together for nonviolence, freedom, and Tibet through the Tibetan Freedom Concerts.
In this six-part audio documentary, concert co-founder Erin Potts tells how a small team of twenty-somethings helped build one of the largest concert series of the 1990s. With friends, artists, activists, and organizers who were part of the story, Erin looks back at how the concerts began, what they changed, and what their legacy offers today.
Produced by Adonde Media in partnership with KALW Public Media.
For more information, please visit https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/
For media assets: https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/press
Or contact: Perry Serpa / Vicious Kid Public Relations; perry@viciouskidpr.com; 917 660-4137
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
FREEDOM NEEDS A SOUNDTRACK PODCAST DEBUTS FIRST EPISODE,
MARKING 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF FIRST TIBETAN FREEDOM CONCERT
LISTEN TO THE TRAILER AND EPISODE 1 HERE:
https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/listen
June 15, 2026 — Today marks the launch of the first episode of Freedom Needs a Soundtrack, a six-part narrative audio documentary revisiting the historic Tibetan Freedom Concerts, one of the largest concert series of the 1990s. Debuting exactly 30 years after the first concert in San Francisco, the series offers an immersive look back at how the concerts began, what they changed, and what their legacy offers today.
The series traces how Erin Potts, who co-founded the Milarepa Fund with Adam Yauch of Beastie Boys, and a dedicated team of organizers, activists, and artists that included U2, Rage Against the Machine, Björk, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, A Tribe Called Quest among many others, transformed music into a powerful force for Tibet and for nonviolent resistance. Freedom Needs a Soundtrack follows this journey that played to millions of music fans and brought Tibet’s struggle for freedom to a global stage.
“Making this series reminded me that the Tibetan Freedom Concerts were bigger than any one stage, band, or organizer,” said Erin Potts. “The artists helped carry the message, but so did the Tibetan speakers, the volunteers, and the audiences who showed up and turned that energy into action.” About the series, she added, “Even people who remember the concerts may be surprised by the stories behind them that we tell in this series, and by how much that work still has to offer 30 years later.”
The series is produced by Adonde Media and distributed in partnership with KALW Public Media in San Francisco, ensuring wide accessibility through public radio distribution via PRX. “It’s important for us to carry over the ethos of the concerts in the series,” says Potts. “The first three Tibetan Freedom Concerts were all held in public parks and spaces, and they were built without corporate sponsors. So, it was important to us to make this series ad-free and to have public partners who could help keep it accessible.”
Featuring firsthand accounts from the people who lived the story, the series explores the concerts' origins, their lasting impact, and the relevance of their legacy today. Net proceeds from merchandise and related activities will directly benefit Students for a Free Tibet and Tibet Action Institute, continuing the mission that launched the concerts decades ago.
Episode 1: The Power Of Music, now accessible via the link in the header, brings us back to a teenage Erin Potts who dreams of a concert for Tibet featuring her favorite band. Meanwhile, imprisoned Tibetan nun Ngawang Sangdrol reveals what it meant to resist from inside Tibet. Their stories meet in the same place: the power of music.
Freedom Needs a Soundtrack is available starting today on all major podcast platforms. New episodes will be released weekly.
About Freedom Needs a Soundtrack
Through first-person stories, archival audio, and immersive sound design, Freedom Needs a Soundtrack marks the 30th anniversary of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts by following Erin Potts, who co-founded them with Adam Yauch of Beastie Boys, and the community of Tibetans, artists, activists, and volunteers who helped build one of the largest concert series of the 1990s. Produced by Adonde Media in partnership with KALW Public Media.
For more information, please visit https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/
For media assets: https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/press
Or contact: Perry Serpa / Vicious Kid Public Relations; perry@viciouskidpr.com; 917 660-4137
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Perry Serpa/Vicious Kid Public Relations
917 660-4137
FREEDOM NEEDS A SOUNDTRACK
NEW NARRATIVE PODCAST REVISITING THE TIBETAN FREEDOM CONCERTS AND THEIR LASTING IMPACT LAUNCHES JUNE 15, 2026 FOR THE CONCERTS’ 30th ANNIVERSARY
SIX-EPISODE SERIES TO BE RELEASED WEEKLY FEATURING VOICES AND STORIES AROUND THE NOW LEGENDARY CONCERT EVENTS
April 24, 2026 — Thirty years after the first Tibetan Freedom Concert helped turn music into a force for activism on a massive scale, Freedom Needs a Soundtrack launches June 15, 2026. The six-episode narrative podcast revisits the concerts’ origins, impact, and legacy through archival material and firsthand accounts from the artists, organizers, and activists who shaped them, anchored by Erin Potts’ journey from teenage music fan to activist and co-founder of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. It tells the story of how an unlikely group of musicians, young organizers, and Tibetan activists brought Tibet’s nonviolent struggle for freedom to a much larger stage, and considers what that legacy offers now.
At the center of the concerts was the Milarepa Fund, a nonprofit founded in 1994 by Erin Potts and Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch, who met in Nepal and soon began working together for Tibet. When Yauch asked Potts to help direct royalties from Beastie Boys tracks that incorporated Tibetan monastic chants, they created the Milarepa Fund as a vehicle for that work and also began building awareness around Tibet through music and touring, first through Lollapalooza ’94 and Beastie Boys tours, and later through the Tibetan Freedom Concerts.
“I was a music fan before I was an activist, and this series tells the story of how those two parts of my life came together through my work for Tibet, and how meeting Adam changed everything,” said Potts. “Adam didn’t just perform at the concerts. He threw himself into every part of the work, from conferences to workshops to organizing. Together with a small group of friends, we turned that shared love, commitment, and a lot of humor into the Tibetan Freedom Concerts.”
The Tibetan Freedom Concerts helped grow support for Tibet and the Tibetan people’s fight for freedom. Since 1959, Tibetans have resisted Chinese occupation at great cost. Their struggle continues to offer a powerful example of nonviolent resistance in an increasingly violent world.
“For Tibetans, the concerts were never just a music story or a fundraiser,” said Deyden Tethong, a Tibetan human rights advocate who worked on the Concerts and is an executive producer of this series. “They helped grow the Tibetan movement, brought new people into it, helped free dozens of political prisoners, and gave many of us a sense that we were not fighting alone. What has become increasingly clear is that our fight for freedom is not only ours. It is part of a global struggle for freedom that more and more people can now see themselves in.”
The concerts began in San Francisco in June 1996, followed by events in New York and Washington, D.C., before expanding internationally in 1999 with shows in East Troy, Wisconsin, Amsterdam, Sydney, and Tokyo. They were among the largest music events of the 1990s, drawing more than 325,000 people and reaching millions more through T.V. and radio broadcasts and early online streaming. Performers included U2, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, R.E.M., Radiohead, Björk, The Fugees, Rage Against the Machine, John Lee Hooker, A Tribe Called Quest, Buddy Guy, Foo Fighters, and the Beastie Boys, amongst many others, alongside Tibetan artists such as Chaksam-pa, Nawang Khechog, and Dadon.
Made possible by contributions from hundreds of supporters, Freedom Needs a Soundtrack will stay true to the original concerts and be released without ads, with net proceeds from merchandise and related activities benefiting Students for a Free Tibet and Tibet Action Institute.
Produced by Adonde Media and distributed in partnership with KALW Public Radio in San Francisco, the series will also be adapted for radio broadcast. KALW will air the series and distribute the broadcast version free of charge to public radio stations nationwide via PRX, expanding the reach of the series beyond podcast audiences and into public media.
“The first three Tibetan Freedom Concerts were all held in public parks and spaces, so it was really important to us to have public partners for this series, too,” Potts said.
Advance materials for Freedom Needs a Soundtrack, including episode descriptions, select images, and interview opportunities with executive producers Erin Potts and Deyden Tethong, are now available to members of the press.
About Freedom Needs a Soundtrack
Through first-person stories, archival audio, and immersive sound design, Freedom Needs a Soundtrack is a narrative podcast that marks the 30th anniversary of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts by tracing how Erin Potts, who co-founded them with Adam Yauch of Beastie Boys, and a small team of twenty-somethings built one of the largest concert series of the 1990s. Across six episodes, it tells the story of how the concerts began, what they changed, and what their legacy offers now, at a moment when freedom and hope feel especially urgent. The series launches June 15 on podcast platforms everywhere, with new episodes dropping weekly. Net proceeds from merchandise and related activities will benefit Students for a Free Tibet and Tibet Action Institute. Freedom Needs a Soundtrack is a Rangzen, LLC production, produced by Adonde Media and distributed in partnership with KALW Public Media in San Francisco.
For more information, please visit: https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/
And for media inquiries or assets, please contact: Perry Serpa/Vicious Kid Public Relations; perry@viciouskidpr.com; 917 660-4137
About the Partners
Adonde Media is a multicultural audio storytelling company based in Los Angeles that has worked with global companies, public media and more to tell true stories that traverse borders of language, culture, and geography.
KALW Public Media is not just a radio station — it’s an experiment in what public media should be. Based in the Bay Area, KALW serves as a catalyst for civic engagement, a home for groundbreaking storytelling, and a training ground for the next generation of media-makers.
Students For A Free Tibet works in solidarity with the Tibetan people in their struggle for freedom and independence. As a global, chapter-based network of young activists, SFT campaigns for Tibetans’ right to political freedom through education, grassroots organizing, and nonviolent direct action - and was a key partner during the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, where the first show helped catalyze a surge in new chapters and global growth.
Tibet Action Institute combines the power of digital communication with strategic nonviolent action to advance the Tibetan freedom movement. Tibet Action brings together expert campaigners, strategists, and technologists to develop and implement visionary strategies and innovative training, education, and technology programs, equipping Tibetans with the tools and knowledge to achieve human rights and freedom in Tibet.
Shift Collective is the fiscal sponsor and story collection and archive partner for Freedom Needs a Soundtrack.
Tibetan Freedom Concert, June 15-16, 1996, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.