Who are Bob Vylan - the duo who 'very much crossed the line' at Glastonbury with anti-IDF chant?
The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Rage Against The Machine - in 2025, it's Kneecap and now Bob Vylan riling politicians.
But in the case of chants made by Bob Vylan on stage at Glastonbury, it is not just MPs. Festival organiser Emily Eavis has also condemned the comments despite the festival's advocacy for free speech, saying they "very much crossed a line".
Police are investigating footage of the performance, which has since been removed by the BBC, to see if any offences were committed.
2:17
So who are Bob Vylan?
The duo are Bobby Vylan, the frontman, and drummer Bobbie Vylan. They have not revealed their real names to protect their privacy.
They formed in Ipswich in 2017 and their musical style is a mix of punk, rap, and hard rock.
They have released three albums - We Live Here (2020), Bob Vylan Presents The Price Of Life (2022), and last year's Humble As The Sun - and their music has won them awards including best alternative act at the MOBOs in 2022, and best album at the Kerrang Awards in the same year.
Their songs confront issues including racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity, and far-right politics, and the track Pretty Songs is often introduced by Bobby saying that "violence is the only language that some people understand".
Gigs often include some crowd-surfing from the frontman, and they have collaborated with artists including Amyl And The Sniffers singer Amy Taylor, Soft Play guitarist Laurie Vincent, and rock band Kid Kapichi.
In an interview with The Guardian last year, Bobby Vylan told how he attended his first pro-Palestine protest at the age of 15, escorted by a friend's mother.
The duo have been outspoken on the war in Gaza and called out other acts seen as left-wing who haven't been showing the same amount of public solidarity.
The Glastonbury set
Before their appearance at the festival, the duo highlighted it to fans watching at home, posting on Facebook: "Turns out we're finally at a point where the BBC trust us on live tv! Watch us live either in the field or in the comfort of your own home!"
On stage, they performed in front of a screen bearing several statements, including one which claimed Israel's actions in Gaza amount to "genocide".
Afterwards, as controversy over the set grew, they appeared to double down with statements shared on social media.
Their comments have drawn criticism from the Israeli embassy and MPs - and now Glastonbury and Emily Eavis, too.
Bob Vylan performed on stage ahead of Kneecap, kept on the bill despite calls for them to be axed.
Michael Eavis, the festival's founder, said before the event that people who did not like the politics could "go somewhere else".
However, Bob Vylan's comments pushed things too far, a statement posted by the festival and Emily Eavis said on Sunday morning.
"As a festival, we stand against all forms of war and terrorism," the statement said. "We will always believe in - and actively campaign for - hope, unity, peace and love."
With almost 4,000 performances over the weekend, there will be artists and speakers appearing "whose views we do not share", they continued, "and a performer's presence here should never be seen as a tacit endorsement of their opinions and beliefs".
But they described the statements by Bob Vylan as "appalling".
"Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
14 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Jessie J says she ‘misses being active mum' as she recovers from cancer surgery
Jessie J has said she is 'missing being an active mum' as she recovers from breast cancer surgery. The Price Tag singer announced in June that she had been diagnosed with early breast cancer and that she would be undergoing treatment. Advertisement The 37-year-old posted to her Instagram story on Tuesday, providing an update after her surgery. 'For those asking for a health update,' she wrote on her Instagram story, 'I am 11 days post surgery. I'm good. Missing being an active mum/human the most.' The artist, whose real name is Jessica Cornish, and her partner Chanan Safir Colman, had a son, Sky Safir Cornish Colman, in May 2023. Jessie added: 'But it's been nice to slow down and Sky is having a blast with Nanny and Grandad. Advertisement 'It's still uncomfortable / a little painful, but I can handle that. I'm doing my exercises and taking all the healthy things. I have been trying to eat super clean.' The singer also revealed she has stopped taking pain medication, saying it is 'just not my thing'. The story featured a picture of Jessie's wound drain, a tube which helps remove excess fluid or blood that can accumulate after surgery. She asked her followers: 'Anyone else who has had this, did you feel like you are walking around one of those dog / duck toys. I carry mine on the floor when I'm home so the gravity can help the drain. Hoping it's out by the end of the week.' Advertisement The artist has battled with ill health throughout her life, having been diagnosed with a heart condition aged eight, suffering a minor stroke aged 18 and having briefly gone deaf in 2020. The Domino singer said she is 'feeling positive and grateful', and asked fans not to worry if she 'seems a little out of it' in public. 'If you do see me out, sitting in a park or coming out of a doctor's appointment or eating or walking or anything, and I seem a little out of it. I am,' Jessie said. 'It's not personal. Advertisement 'I don't have what I usually have to give energy wise, understandably. I will get there. It's a slow road.'
The Guardian
14 minutes ago
- The Guardian
What would British culture be like if Oasis had never existed?
In the peculiar counterfactual 2019 romcom Yesterday, the Beatles suddenly and mysteriously vanish from history, remembered by just one man. In the interests of a cheap joke, writer Richard Curtis improbably suggests that every band in the world would still exist in the Beatles' absence, bar one: Oasis. But what about a world without Oasis? As the Gallaghers themselves would admit, they weren't innovators like the Beatles, whose every move changed the course of popular music. If Noel had never joined Liam's band at the end of 1991, Creation Records might well have gone bust, Manchester City would have had less pop cachet, and The Royle Family would have needed a different theme tune, but music wouldn't have sounded significantly different. Today, new bands are more likely to cite the spiky intelligence of Radiohead or the Smiths than Oasis's broad strokes, and very few younger than Arctic Monkeys expects to fill stadiums. What Tracey Emin beautifully described as the 'brightness of things happening' did not depend on Oasis – from club culture to the Young British Artists, Trainspotting to Kate Moss, New Labour to Euro 96, the era's colour was turned up with or without them. Nor did Britpop flow from Oasis. By the time Definitely Maybe came out in August 1994, Suede and Pulp were crashing the charts and Blur's Parklife was on its way to going four times platinum, their paths smoothed by Matthew Bannister's rejuvenation of Radio 1. The commercial bar for indie rock had already been raised, up to a point. Instead, as the mania around their reunion demonstrates, the Gallaghers' unique achievement was unprecedented scale. They made alternative culture mainstream, because nobody else craved success so unapologetically: daytime airplay, No 1s, stadiums, the whole shebang. For some of their peers, this breakneck acceleration and magnification produced new opportunities. Oasis's example made possible the second acts of Manic Street Preachers, the Verve and Robbie Williams, before inspiring the formation of younger bands such as Coldplay, the Killers, Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian. It wasn't the sound so much as the possibility: music for the masses. Oasis made dreaming big not just an option but a necessity. 'It wasn't: 'Who's good?'' the Boo Radleys' Martin Carr complained of the cash-burning A&R hunt for the next Oasis. 'It was: 'Who's going to be famous?'' Bands like his, accustomed to modest commercial goals, were suddenly deemed failures if their latest single missed the Top 20, and derailed by these impossible expectations. Even Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker soon overdosed on pop celebrity and sought stranger escape routes. Oasis alone sought and achieved true mass appeal by tapping into a communal, aspirational hedonism that suited the times. But in shrugging off indie's underdog mentality, they also devalued its eccentric outsider's point of view. The Britpop boom scrambled the music papers' bearings, turning them into cheerleaders for what was popular rather than champions of what was interesting. '[Oasis] shut down the argument, shut down experimentation,' the artist Jeremy Deller once complained. 'They took all the oxygen out of the scene and became the only band.' Nothing summed up the new sports-like obsession with victory more than Blur and Oasis's news-making battle for No 1 in August 1995, which also established a crude and artificial class dynamic. Contrary to the rich and varied history of British popular music, the discourse around Oasis defined the only 'authentic' working-class music as simple, direct, white, laddishly male and aggressively anti-intellectual. Noel insisted (sometimes disingenuously) that his songs meant next to nothing – they were 'just about a feeling'. Oasis were a vibe, an energy, and one that lent itself to gung-ho patriotism. Contrast Albarn's sharp ambivalence about British identity with the blunt hurrah of Noel's union jack guitar. Oasis can't be blamed for all these unintended consequences but they were the giant catalyst. Today, the Gallaghers are in every 90s nostalgia montage – Liam in bed on the cover of Vanity Fair's Cool Britannia issue and Noel shaking hands with Tony Blair at Number 10. They remain a magnetic force, bending our collective memory towards them. So let's again imagine that Oasis never came to pass. What's different? Most of 90s culture proceeds anyway, only its busy diversity is more apparent. Britpop remains, but in a less anthemically populist form, closer to journalist Stuart Maconie's original 1993 manifesto of 'glamour, wit and irony'. Alternative music still crosses over but its growth is more sustainable and commercial success does not become a do-or-die metric. Tabloid gossip columns rarely overlap with the NME. Flags and politicians are still regarded with suspicion. The lows aren't as low – but maybe the highs aren't as high.
Telegraph
21 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Instagram under fire for hosting Bob Vylan ‘death to the IDF' video
Instagram is under pressure to remove Bob Vylan's chant of 'death, death to the IDF' after the Glastonbury controversy attracted a surge in online interest in the group. A video of the group's Saturday afternoon performance, shared by the band's frontman on Instagram, has been viewed more than 5m times. The page for the duo's singer Pascal Robinson-Foster – known as Bobby Vylan – has seen its followers increase almost fourfold in the last week amid continuous controversy. The surge in online attention has also led to a spike in the band's Spotify listeners and viewers on YouTube. The BBC has not made footage of the punk/rap duo's Glastonbury set available on demand and has apologised for not cutting away from the live broadcast. During the performance, the group led the audience in chants of 'Death, death to the IDF!' and chanted 'Free! Free!' with the crowd responding 'Palestine!'. The footage has been viewed millions of times on Instagram, despite the social network banning incitements to violence. The app's ban extends to calling for the death of an army's soldiers, although Instagram's parent company Meta has made exceptions such as allowing Ukrainians to wish violence against Russian invaders. A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: 'Bob Vylan's calls for death and destruction should have no place on streaming or social media platforms. We have long called for tougher regulations on social media sites and that social networks proactively search for and remove hate speech from their platforms. 'It is outrageous that footage that the BBC removed for its extremism is now being proudly shared on Instagram, driving up streams and followers. Platforms must not allow musicians or activists inciting violence to profit or gain influence by spreading this poison.' Footage of the performance was posted by the celebrities4palestine page and shared by Bobby Vylan. Meta has toughened its stance against antisemitic posts, including removing posts targeting 'Zionists', although its Oversight Board last year ruled that messages featuring the phrase 'from the river to the sea' do not glorify Hamas and should remain online. Bobby Vylan's Instagram followers have risen from 71,000 to 260,000, according to figures from analytics company Chartmetric. The band's Spotify followers have climbed by 16pc in the last week and YouTube subscribers have risen by 29pc, although many artists see a rise after Glastonbury.
