On Friday, August 22, Irish folks band the Mary Wallopers had their set at Portsmouth, England’s Victorious Pageant cut short after flying the Palestinian flag onstage and main a chant of “free Palestine.” A number of artists, together with the Last Dinner Party, subsequently pulled out of their scheduled performances in protest, and now Vampire Weekend, who’re amongst this 12 months’s headliners, have known as out the pageant’s organizers.
As reported by Portsmouth News, Ezra Koenig addressed the gang throughout Vampire Weekend’s set final evening (Saturday, August 23). “If somebody was punished for flying a flag, that’s fallacious they usually deserve an apology,” Koenig mentioned. “The horrible struggling of the Palestinian folks deserves all of our sympathy.”
Writing to NME, representatives for Victorious initially claimed to have lower off the Mary Wallopers’ sound as a result of they “used a chant which is broadly understood to have a discriminatory context.” The band then responded with their own statement alongside footage of the stage throughout their set: “The pageant have launched a deceptive assertion to the press claiming they lower our sound due to a discriminatory chant and never the band’s name to Free Palestine.”
The assertion continues: “Our video clearly exhibits a Victorious crew member approaching stage, interfering with our present, eradicating the flag from the stage after which the sound being lower following a chant of “Free Palestine.” The identical crew member is later heard within the video saying “you aren’t taking part in till the flag is eliminated.” Victorious Pageant then launched a second statement apologizing to the band. Learn each in full under.
In June, British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan had their U.S. visas revoked after a controversial Glastonbury set the place frontman Bobby Vylan led the gang in a chant of “Death, death to the IDF.” Irish rap trio Kneecap, whose efficiency at Coachella 2025 featured pro-Palestine and anti-Israel messages, have since been removed from the lineup of Glasgow’s TRNSMT music pageant, banned from Hungary, and had one in all their members, Mo Chara, charged with a terror offense for allegedly displaying the Hezbollah flag throughout a 2024 live performance. Each teams are at the moment being investigated by British police following their units at Glastonbury this 12 months.
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