Radiohead on Tibetan Freedom Concert

Thom Yorke is in Amsterdam, at an event he says the band are regulars at by now. He got involved because he was asked and had been reading about Tibet anyway, so the two arrived together. He recommends a translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, with a warning that it is very serious and frightening, and jokes that he is playing with Jonny Greenwood because he was too chicken to do it alone.

The first American concert, in New York, he found uplifting. Washington was another matter. The atmosphere was strange from the first day, the sky turned green, there was lightning and someone was struck by it, and the monks were visibly unsettled. He calls it the most peculiar weekend.

He doubts the cause will land as well in Europe, where people are more cynical and taken up with the crisis on their own continent. From there he turns on Western powers that present themselves as an international police force while choosing which injustices to notice and which are inconvenient.