The Last Dinner Party pulled out of their set at Portsmouth’s Victorious festival at the weekend after Irish band the Mary Wallopers saw their set cut short after saying “free Palestine and fuck Israel”.
On Friday, the Mary Wallopers walked onstage and unveiled a Palestinian flag alongside their opening remarks. Video appeared to show a crew member confronting the band about the flag, which was draped on the stage, and then removing it. After calls from the band and the crowd of “free, free Palestine”, the sound was cut. The band briefly retrieved the flag to cheers.
A representative for the festival initially said that the show was cut short after the band used “a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context”.
On Instagram, the Mary Wallopers disputed this, posting footage of the incident. “The festival have released a misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant and not the band’s call to Free Palestine. Our video clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of ‘Free Palestine’. The same crew member is later heard in the video saying ‘you aren’t playing until the flag is removed’.
“We completely reject Victorious’ portrayal of today’s events and request that they retract their statement immediately.”
Victorious put out a subsequent statement apologising for the situation. “We are in the business of putting on great shows, not cutting them off and this is the last thing we wanted, for the band, their fans and ourselves. We didn’t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached. This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all involved.
“We absolutely support the right of artists to freely express their views from the stage, within the law and the inclusive nature of the event. Our policy of not allowing flags of any kind, which has been in place for many years for wider event management and safety reasons, is not meant to compromise that right.”
The organisers accepted the band’s version of the events and said they would be making “a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people”.
In response to the Mary Walloper’s set being pulled, British band the Last Dinner Party cancelled their scheduled Saturday performance at the festival. “We are outraged by the decision made to silence the Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious,” they posted on Instagram. “As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today.”
The decision also drew condemnation from US band Vampire Weekend, who went ahead with their performance at Victorious on Saturday night. Frontman Ezra Koenig told the crowd: “If someone was punished for flying a flag, that is wrong and they deserve an apology. The terrible suffering of the Palestinian people deserves all of our sympathy.”
Additionally this weekend, the BBC explained that it had “mutually agreed” with Reading and Leeds headliner Hozier ahead of the festivals that it would not broadcast his set. Onstage, the Irish musician called for a free Palestine and a “meaningful political solution for the kind of violence we’ve been seeing on our TV screens over the last two years – not lip service, but a meaningful peace process”.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theguardian.com ’
