The Glastonbury 'death' chant that sparked a firestorm

Australia Broadcast Center

4 hours ago

Sydney Pead: Music has always been a powerful form of protest, but a rap band who played the popular music festival Glastonbury in the UK could be facing criminal charges after leading the crowd in chants calling for death to the Israeli military, which were live streamed on the BBC. Today, British music journalist Dorian Lynskey on the controversy and when protests by musicians go too far. I'm Sydney Pead on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Dorian, you were actually at Glastonbury this year, which is one of the biggest music festivals in the world. For those of us who couldn't make it, can you just set the scene for us?
Dorian Lynskey: So if you haven't been to Glastonbury, you probably won't realise how big it is. It's sort of as big as a small city. It's about 200,000 people, multiple stages. God knows how many acts. There isn't really like a central narrative or focus to the festival. There's countless different experiences of the festival. So it's always quite weird reading like a media account of what was happening at Glastonbury.
Sydney Pead: But this year, the festival was more controversial than usual. A British rap group called Bob Vylan was in the middle of their set.
Bobby Vylan: Bob f***ing Vylan.
Sydney Pead: And the front man, Bobby Vylan, began talking about the war in Gaza. And then he led a series of chants with the audience. Can you just sort of step me through that set?
Dorian Lynskey: You know, t they'd chant a free Palestine, which was quite common. Quite a few people saying that.
Bobby Vylan and Glastonbury audience: Free, free! Gaza! Free, free! Gaza!
Dorian Lynskey: But then I think said, have you heard this one? And then a different chant, which was death to the IDF.
Bobby Vylan and Glastonbury audience: Gaza! Aight have you heard this one though?
Dorian Lynskey: That was the whole focus of the controversy. And what was weird, I think, is that Kneecap, the Irish rap trio who all the controversy was around. That's what in the build up to Glastonbury, it was like, should they play Glastonbury? Should the BBC show their set? That was meant to be the focus. And the reason why so many people were there to watch, to see Bob Vylan actually was because they were waiting for Kneecap.
Sydney Pead: Now, this set and this chant, it was live streamed. on the BBC to millions of people. And that caused this huge uproar. The broadcast regulator got involved and said the BBC had questions to answer over the decision to keep broadcasting those comments. It was just this huge kind of uproar that happened in the wake of that set, right?
Dorian Lynskey: The BBC chose not to show it later on iPlayer. Glastonbury Festival condemned those comments. What they were meant to do in the moment, I really don't know. You know, if you watch the clip, the Death to the IDF chant, it's seconds. So it's like, well, what could they have done? Cut it off a second or two earlier? It always happens. You get the media, particularly the right wing media and politicians trying to make this into an enormous thing. And at the core of it is, you know, I think, like an extremely misjudged chant and like an unnecessary one as well, which enables all of this kind of uproar to occur.
Sydney Pead: The BBC has since announced that in the future it will no longer stream live acts that it considers to be high risk. It said there was no place for anti-Semitism on the BBC. But the broadcaster was already on high alert because, as you mentioned, the Irish rap group Kneecap was coming on the stage straight afterwards. Their set went on to echo similar sentiments to those of Bob Vylan.
Mo Chara, member of rap group Kneecap: And it's important. Like, I know sometimes, listen, I can see the amount of Palestinian flags here and it's f***ing insane. The BBC editor is going to have some job.
News reporting: Kneecap led the crowd in expletive-laden chants about the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer after he said it wasn't appropriate for the group to perform.
Sydney Pead: For background, one of the rappers in the band Kneecap, he's known as Mo Chara, he was already facing charges under the British Terrorism Act. He's accused of supporting a terror group at a live Kneecap show last November.
News reporting: One of its members was charged for allegedly displaying the flag of Hezbollah, a prescribed terrorist organisation, at a gig last year. He's denied the charge.
Dorian Lynskey: That was the story going into the festival. That was why there was pressure. I mean, Prime Minister Kier Starmer, when asked about it, said: oh, I don't think Kneecap should be playing Glastonbury at all. And that's why the BBC wasn't live streaming it. Yes, it all stems from that incident, that police investigation, yeah.
Sydney Pead: So, Dorian, all of this ignited this huge firestorm in the wake of Glastonbury. The Glastonbury organisers distanced themselves from Bob Vylan's performance. They said their chants very much crossed a line and that there's no place at Glastonbury for anti-Semitism or hate speech or incitement to violence. The PM described the comments as hate speech, and it even led to two of those Bob Vylan members having their US visas cancelled before their upcoming US tour. But lastly, these two performances have resulted in another criminal investigation being launched. But let's talk a bit more about these two bands, because they are by nature protest groups, aren't they? Kneecap in particular is a political act.
Dorian Lynskey: I think Bob Vylan are nothing without that, more so than Kneecap, because Kneecap have a kind of weird combination of sort of almost like cartoon comedy rap and very sincere politics. But by their nature, by their essence, they're political, because they're often rapping in the Irish language. I mean, they are Republicans, they want a united Ireland. And so, I mean, that's a pretty, that in itself has been controversial. And they admitted to me when I interviewed them at that time that they courted that to some extent. And I think that's what is often an issue for bands that play with controversy. And that they want to be provocative, they want to cause a fuss. It's sort of good for them if a politician is angry with them. It's good publicity, it gets the message out, it gives them an enemy.
Sydney Pead: Let's talk about this kind of act, really, because they are protests really through music, and that is nothing new. We've always seen this throughout history. And you've written a whole book on the history of protest song. So what are some similar examples where we've seen this before?
Dorian Lynskey: I mean, there are examples of artists who were trying to be provocative. They were trying to make an impact. You know, the Sex Pistols, particularly around the time of God Save the Queen, you know, obviously that was meant to wind people up. If you look at political artists that have had some longevity, you could say The Clash, say Rage Against the Machine, Billy Bragg. These are people that kind of, they never really quite find themselves in the firestorm. And what normally causes trouble is it's not normally songs. It's things people say. It's things people say in interviews. It's things people blurt out on stage. So it's not as if either kneecap or Bob Villain have written and recorded songs with the messages that have got them into trouble.
Sydney Pead: Do you think the fact that these comments are filmed and shared and streamed to millions of people, does that make a difference to what can and can't be said?
Dorian Lynskey: I think it changes it so much. I mean, there were, of course, controversies before. There were things that I came across that people used to say, people said in the music press when I was researching my book, that were so controversial and I'd never heard of them. And they caused them no trouble at all because they were just in the music press and nobody really noticed. And that circulation of the stories around the world and of the clips, and if you see that Bob Vylan clip, even just the way he's saying it, it makes it worse. Did it just come out? Was it an idea that, okay, I don't care if this destroys our career? And maybe what I don't quite understand about the Bob Vylan case is what they thought would happen, like the thinking behind it. Because it's like, okay, you know that you're at Glastonbury. You know that you're on the BBC. You're going a lot further than just Free Palestine. Like, what are you trying to achieve? What do you think is going to happen here?
Sydney Pead: Just like Bob Vylan have had their US visas revoked, we've seen similar things happen here in Australia. We just had the rapper Kanye West refused a visa to enter because of anti-Semitic song lyrics. That song is titled Heil Hitler, to be fair. Our Immigration Minister, Tony Burke, he said Australia wouldn't support Nazism.
Tony Burke, Minister for Home Affairs: My officials looked at it again once he released the Heil Hitler song and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia.
Patricia Karvelas, Host of ABC's Afternoon Briefing: So that's it, Kanye West not allowed to come to Australia?
Tony Burke, Minister for Home Affairs: Well, he had a valid visa. He no longer has a valid visa.
Sydney Pead: So is it the same thing?
Dorian Lynskey: Well it gets so complicated because I think it's always on a case by case basis. I mean, you know, and you can call that inconsistency or hypocrisy. But I mean, there has to be room for artists and indeed, you know, people in general to be able to say a range of things that may be offensive. And yet, you know, the case that you mentioned there, if you've been anti-Semitic and you've sold T-shirts with swastikas on them, and then you release a song called Heil Hitler, you know, there is provocation and then there is just simply almost rude not to revoke the visa.
Sydney Pead: Mm. Well, both Bob Vylan and Kneecap, they stand by their actions. Bob Vylan says they've been targeted for speaking up. They and their fans say the criticism and the police action is purely a distraction from the issue which they were trying to protest, which is, of course, in this case, the war in Gaza. We've touched on it, but what do you think? Where is the line here?
Dorian Lynskey: Yeah, I mean, I find it very difficult because I am, you know, I'm very torn. I have, you know, enormous sympathy with Gaza, enormous rage at the Israeli government and the fact that the literal killings by the IDF are less newsworthy than someone saying death to the IDF, right? So that annoys me and it seems completely disproportionate. On the other hand, you know, you do have to be honest about, OK, well, what is acceptable? What do you think is an acceptable sort of form of protest, a language of protest? So, of course, there is no free speech absolutism where your political biases don't come into play. Nobody is going, oh, you should just be able to say anything you like. It's always like you'll defend one person but not another person.
Sydney Pead: And finally, Dorian, so much has been achieved through protest song. A great gig brings people together and can be a powerful force for change. So when bands are accused of crossing the line into hate speech, is it counterproductive?
Dorian Lynskey: I mean, I think it probably is. If you're trying to make your point, and this is true across not just protest music but political activism, the words you choose matter. So the anti-Vietnam protests, for example, you know, end the war and then chanting in favour of, like, the Viet Cong. I mean, that looked terrible on TV. That seems, that really hurt the cause. So I think that it's a mistake, I think, for defenders of sort of knee-capable villains to think that, you know, they have to defend them 100% because that means that they are defending Palestine or free speech or so forth. Because there is a difference in politics between wise strategy and self-defeating strategy. And so the words that you choose, whether or not you have the right to say them, they really matter. And I think if he just said, you know, F the IDF, I think that would have been fine. I think it's as soon as you introduce death too, which, you know, it does sound very, very sensitive, very aggressive, particularly if people are kind of chanting it back. And bear in mind that festival crowds, a lot of time, they would just sort of chant anything. It's not as if they were all fully signed up, necessarily. There is an instinct to sort of go along with whatever the person on stage is saying. But that sounded sort of really menacing. And so then you have to think, okay, well, can you agree with even, like, 90% of what someone says about Palestine, about Israel, and yet still recognise that the things that have got them into trouble, the things that police investigation and causing these massive headlines, are something else and they're beyond the pale and they're not just a more exaggerated version of that sentiment. And can you then also say, okay, well, this can be bad, even if it's obviously not as bad as what is actually happening in Gaza.
Sydney Pead: Dorian Lynskey is a British music journalist who attended Glastonbury. This episode was produced by Kara Jensen-Mckinnon and Adair Sheppard. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sydney Pead. ABC News Daily will be back again tomorrow. Thanks for listening.