Update, Feb. 26, 2023: Noise Pop’s scheduled screening of Free Tibet at The Cut Outdoor Cinema has been postponed until June 15, 2023, due to poor weather conditions.
Back in 1996, Beastie Boys’ Adam “MCA” Yauch was going through a spiritual awakening. He had recently converted to Buddhism after years of studying the religion and Tibetan culture. Yauch had attended lessons by the Dalai Lama and spent time with the monk Palden Gyatso, who had survived torture and imprisonment in Chinese camps for 33 years.
As Yauch embraced Tibetan ideologies, he felt compelled to do something to help the people of the region who had been living under Chinese occupation since 1949.
“There’s really only a couple of years left that Tibetan culture is gonna survive unless something starts changing,” Yauch told Inside Edition at the time. “At the rate that their culture is being destroyed, there’s very little time left. I think we all have a responsibility because it’s part of our world. To ignore it is to contribute to it.”
What Yauch came up with to assist the Tibetan people was the biggest benefit concert since 1985’s transatlantic Live Aid event. The two-day Tibetan Freedom concert in Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field ended up attracting more than 100,000 fans and raising $800,000.
