It seems the only way to get America's youth to acknowledge human rights violations overseas is to expose them to the information at a hedonistic two-day music festival. For 363 days a year, few of them could find Tibet on a map -- let alone describe the Chinese government's abhorrent treatment of the country's population. But Saturday and Sunday at the Tibetan Freedom Concert, at least some of that ethnocentrism was put on hold as alternative rock and hip-hop's elite gathered in an attempt to let freedom ring.
\\There's a good chance the Milarepa Fund, which sponsored the event, will let freedom ring somewhere else next year, as only about 45,000 fans attended the two-day event at Downing Stadium at Randall's Island in New York -- a far cry from the 100,000 that packed San Francisco's Golden Gate Park for the first annual concert last year. But if the attendance was a cause for concern, no one involved with the event was saying it.
\\Instead, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch was worrying whether the audience was getting anything out of the show besides a good time. "The issue really needs to stay in the media and can't just disappear after this concert," he said before the show.
\\Radiohead, which dedicated "The Bends" to "every corporation that thinks it can pull the wool over the eyes of the population," refuses to stay at Holiday Inns when touring because the Bass PLC-owned chain "set up a hotel in conjunction with the Chinese authorities in Lhasa [the capital of Tibet]," said the band's guitarist, Ed O'Brien. "[Bass] kind of glosses over what's going on over there. They're basically party to these abuses."
\\Hip-hop scholar KRS-One recommended a more aggressive approach. "It's 1997 and we really need to re-think this idea of non-violence," he said. "It's a high concept -- it's an intellectual, spiritual concept. But you're fighting the devil. If Tibet would like to take on some philosophies of hip-hop, go punch China in the face."
\\What the philosophy of the late Kurt Cobain would have been is anybody's guess, but the former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl was asked anyway. "You'll have to ask him," Grohl replied, adding sarcastically, "Great question though."
\\On the other side of the stage, concern for the cause was varied. Seth, a 24-year-old from Boston who did not give his last name, was already aware of China's abuses. "I have two sisters who are adopted from China so I'm really into the Chinese and Tibetan culture." Others were just there to rock. When asked what the concert meant to him, a fan from Queens said it was "about them, you know, trying to be free and stuff." Sean Sweeny, 27, and Ian Dillon, 28, from Liverpool, England, were just as indifferent. The pair flew 3,000 miles to see Noel Gallagher do a 30-minute set and only saw the Oasis guitarist perform his last song, "Helter Skelter." "We went to the bar, had a few beers, smoked a bit of weed," said Ian. "If I spend all this money, I wanna see the fucking Dalai Lama."
\\Good cause veteran Bono had a sense of humor about the whole thing, telling journalists that the Dalai Lama's greatest legacy will be "a great haircut." Added to the first day of the festival (perhaps because slow ticket sales gave them some room in their schedule), the band performed without all the overblown effects of "PopMart." "It was nice playing in a small stage in a small place," said bassist Adam Clayton, referring to the 27,000 seat capacity Downing Stadium. "It kinda takes you back a bit."
\\The event may not quite yield the $800,000 the Milarepa Fund raised last year -- organizers did not know how much they had raised by deadline -- but the mix of good fun and a good cause seemed well worth the $40-per-day tickets. "Most of the things we do in this great universe are the pinpoint of
