Bob Vylan dropped from European tour after Glastonbury controversy

Telegraph

15-07-2025

Bob Vylan has been dropped from a European tour after the controversy caused by their performance at the Glastonbury festival.
The British punk-rap duo were accused of anti-Semitism after leading chants of 'death, death to the IDF', referring to the Israeli army, and 'free, free Palestine' at this year's festival.
Now, the group has been 'removed' from supporting Gogol Bordello, a Ukranian-American band, on their 37-date European tour across 13 venues.
'In the aftermath, we needed to evaluate the situation, and we decided to remove BV from the tour until we could fully comprehend the situation,' said Gogol Bordello.
Bob Vylan had already been taken off the bill for all of Gogol Bordello's shows in Germany last week after Cologne's Live Music Hall refused to let them perform.
A headline festival appearance in Manchester and another festival performance in France have also been cancelled.
'Logistical complications'
Last week, masked protestors in Amsterdam threatened to riot if Bob Vylan performed before Gogol Bordello at the city's Paradiso venue in September.
Bob Vylan, in a separate statement, blamed 'logistical complications'.
'Due to logistical complications, we have decided not to join our friends Gogol Bordello on their upcoming European tour,' Bob Vylan said in a statement.
'However, we will be heading to Europe in the coming months for both festivals and headline shows.'
Volker Beck, president of the German-Israeli Society, had called for a ban on what best-selling tabloid Bild called 'hate musicians'.
'People like that disrupt security and order in our country; they have no business being here,' he said before the German concerts were cancelled.
Not welcome in Amsterdam
Dutch police launched an investigation after two masked men held up a banner outside Amsterdam's Paradiso venue. It read 'If Bob Vylan plays that night/ Amsterdam will stand and fight.'
Paradiso had said the concert would go ahead with extra security precautions before the decision was taken to drop Bob Vylan from the whole tour.
Bob Vylan's Glastonbury appearance sparked anger in Britain and a criminal investigation was launched into the chanting, which Sir Keir Starmer called 'appalling'.
The BBC apologised for not pulling the livestream of the performance, which is no longer available on the iPlayer platform.
Tim Davie, director-general of the BBC, has blamed staff for not cutting the broadcast.
He told Parliament's culture, media and sport committee on Monday that ending the livestream was an 'option open to those on the ground on the day', but that they had not taken action.
Pascal Robinson-Foster, the frontman for Bob Vylan, told fans that they could get him into 'trouble' after they began chanting 'death, death to the IDF' at a London surprise gig on Wednesday night.