In 2010Tashi Powers learned how to put together a charity concert from Denzyl Fiegelson, one of the architects of the iTunes festival, now in its 8th successful year..
An old friend asked her to help raise money for Waste Not Want Not Now, and Tashi said she would love to help if it got its 501c3 status. And it took a few years, but it did just that. So with that in place and as Tashi saw the reality of the streets of LA, A member of the WNWNN Board, Nancy Beyda asked Julian Casablancas to help raise money for the homeless, especially for The Center in Hollywood, and low and behold, he told Nancy
..I’d really rather just play for a group of homeless people, but it would make more money if my band The Strokes does this.. JC
Lisa Ruschioni misterprettypictures.com instagram @mister_pretty_pictures
Tashi was overjoyed to get the news that she could go ahead and plan a concert at the Wiltern.
Tashi was advised to start The City of Angels to help do a series of concerts because it's going to take a lot of help – there are over 50K people living on the streets.
Tashi took on the task of organizing the benefit concert, working closely with many dedicated professionals, friends, colleagues, and volunteers, and especially with Graphic Designer, and Artistic Director of City of Angels, who donated several months of 24/7 days George Ozuna– she was able to C0-create a concert.
The inaugural concert benefited three charities at the concert. WNWNN, The Center, and The Downtown Women’s Center.
The band’s people are the gems that you don’t see, and their hearts of gold made it all look and flow so easily, but the truth is it is a lot of hard work to pull off a concert.
Julian tasked Richard Priest, the band’s co-manager, to rally everyone and get them to agree to do this show for us in LA. Their only show on the West Coast was squeezed in on their way back from a tour of Australia.
From the beginning, people told us that there was no way that this show would happen –
The Strokes were too big a band and there were many people who would be losing money if they did a free show in such a major market. #oyeeeoflittlefaith
Julian’s and the band’s commitment to making a difference in the lives of homeless people is responsible for making this happen.
We’re all incredibly grateful for the generosity of THE STROKES band and their management, 3 Partners: Ryan Gentles at Wiz Kid/C3 Management, Richard Priest, Jack Rovner’s – Vector Management.
Deep gratitude to Jaime Nabrynski – social media director at Wiz Kid/C3 Management who worked closely with Barbara Szabo at Rideorcry.co, to put up our social media.
Shout out to everyone at Live Nation, and the incredibly lovely people at Wiltern who all worked so diligently and made this all come together.
Many thanks to ALL THE FANS, because without you it was just
an empty concert hall.
Your amazing energy filled us all and we love you for
showing up. We do this for you as much as to help our
beautiful city to heal.
We’re excited to be part of the solution to the crisis on our streets… and we are just getting started..We have chosen our next charity, a national major Charity – GIVE LIFE FOUNDATION, and may have a wonderful surprise – a second VERY MAJOR CHARITY and we are excited to be putting it together. Keep tuned for announcements.
We are nailing down our next band and hope to bring the next concert to the Wiltern early in 2017