Show Notes
Coming June 15, 2026, Freedom Needs a Soundtrack is a six-part audio documentary about the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, one of the largest concert series of the 1990s. The series traces how Erin Potts, who co-founded the concerts with Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, and a small team of twenty-somethings helped bring together artists including U2, Rage Against the Machine, Björk, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, A Tribe Called Quest, and others for Tibet. With friends, artists, 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. Learn more at https://www.freedomneedsasoundtrack.com/. This series is a Rangzen production, produced by Adonde Media and distributed in partnership with KALW Public Media in San Francisco.
More from Freedom Needs a Soundtrack
Episode 6: 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, Beijing and beyond. Erin and others look back on what it set in motion, and ahead to what the fight for freedom needs now.
Episode 5: 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. Note: This episode includes a cuss word or two.
Episode 4: 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. Note: This episode includes discussion of torture, plus a cuss word or two.
Episode 3: After protest photos and freedom songs are smuggled out of Tibet, Erin returns home, where a dinner with Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys 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 attend Lollapalooza with the Beastie Boys and a group of Tibetan monks. Note: This episode includes discussion of torture, plus a cuss word or two.
Episode 2: 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 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. Note: This episode includes discussion of a violent response to a peaceful protest, plus a cuss word or two.