Erin Potts

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.

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.

The co-founder of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, which took place in San Francisco in the ‘90s to support the cause of Tibetan independence, shares how music was the door into awareness.

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.

Experience the story behind the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, and how an unlikely group of people turned music and hope into action.

Before the Tibetan Freedom Concerts became one of the biggest shows of the 1990s, teenage Erin Potts dreamt of a concert for Tibet featuring her favorite band. Meanwhile, imprisoned Tibetan nun Nawang Sangdrol reveals what it meant to resist from inside Tibet. Their stories meet in the same place: the power of music.