Tales from the personal archive
Tibetan Freedom Concert
13th June 1999
Amsterdam, Tokyo, Chicago & Sydney
I had a discussion with Adam Yauch in Cologne at a Beastie Boys show in April 99 about getting involved with the TFC. Adam asked me to work on the Amsterdam show with Milarepa and Mojo Concerts so off to Amsterdam I popped. On the day we had performances from Blur, Radiohead (Thom & Jonny), Alanis Morissette, Joe Strummer, Garbage, and Ben Harper. RATM were scheduled to play but flipped it to Chicago at the last minute.
The highlight of the day (and arguably one of the highlights of my career) was to look after Joe Strummer for a couple of hours. We ate together and then Joe was good enough to do some press interviews for us to help highlight the plight of the Tibetan people. Once that was done we went back to Joe’s dressing room and had the following conversation:
JS – “Dave”
DC – “Yes Joe”
JS – “What’s different about this dressing room to normal ones?”
DC – “I don’t know Joe”
JS – “It has no ceiling” (the rooms were just partitioned off with curtains)
DC – “Duly noted Joe”
JS – “and Dave. What’s that over there?”
DC – “It’s a bowl of fruit Joe”
JS – “That is correct Dave. If I was to throw the fruit into the other dressing rooms would you have any objections”
DC – “Of course not Joe. Crack on my friend!”
Joe Strummer, punk rock warlord, then proceeded to throw fruit into Radiohead, Blur and Garbages dressing rooms and was laughing his head off for a good length of time”. So lucky to have been there to witness it.
Extremely proud to have been involved with Yauch’s vision and to have worked closely with Milarepa, His Holiness, and the Tibetan Embassy. #FreeTibet
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