Join us for one show only on Wednesday, July 8 at 7 p.m. for “The Airwaves Belong to the People: WBCN and The American Revolution” (1 hour, 57 minutes). This is the untold story of how radio, politics, and rock and roll helped end a war and change everything.

Before social media, before the internet, there was WBCN. “The Airwaves Belong to the People: WBCN and the American Revolution” is the definitive account of WBCN-FM Boston, the legendary Boston radio station that helped change American music, politics, and media forever. At a time when the mainstream press was failing to tell Americans the truth about Vietnam, the draft, and the Nixon administration, WBCN did something radical: it told the truth.

The film begins in 1968, when the counterculture arrived in Boston — hippies in the streets, police cracking down, a generation looking for something new. Out of that moment, a young lawyer named Ray Riepen opened the Boston Tea Party, a music venue that became the beating heart of the scene. When the crowds kept coming, Riepen had a bigger idea: a radio station. On March 15, 1968, a classical music station became something previously unheard on American radio — a place where people said what they thought, played what they wanted, and changed everything. It features Bruce Springsteen's first radio interview and live in-studio performance (1973), Patti Smith's first radio concert (1975), and rare archival material from Jane Fonda, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Garcia, David Bowie, and Lou Reed.

It is a story about music and media, about dissent and democracy, about what happens when a group of people decide that the public airwaves should serve the public — and fight to make it so.

Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Bill Lichtenstein brings together rare archival footage, iconic recordings, and the voices of the people who were there — on the air, in the streets, and in the halls of power. The film aired nationally on PBS, sold out its Boston-area premiere, and the Boston Globe's Ty Burr called it a film audiences "watch with awe."

Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $8 for Harbor Theater members; $12 for non-members. ADA-mandated Audio Descriptive (AD) and Closed Caption (CC) devices are available for the visually and hearing-impaired. Inquire at the concession stand.

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