Festival organisers who cancelled Bob Vylan wanted to book Kneecap instead
The British punk rap duo who caused controversy at Glastonbury after chanting 'death to the IDF', referring to the Israel Defence Forces, were set to headline Radar Festival at Manchester's Victoria Warehouse on Saturday (July 5). However, earlier this week, the festival organisers announced on social media that the band would no longer be appearing at the three-day festival near Old Trafford.
It comes amid anger over the BBC's decision to allow a livestream of Bob Vylan's set to continue. The band have also had their visas revoked for scheduled performances in the United States while police are investigating whether any crime was committed on stage.
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Speaking on a podcast recorded just hours after the announcement, one of the organisers of Radar Festival said that the decision to cancel the headliner was taken out of their hands and that, at one point, they considered booking Belfast band Kneecap instead.
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The Irish-language rap trio have also caused controversy in recent months with one their members, Liam Ó hAnnaidh who performs under the name Mo Chara, having been charged with a terror offence after allegedly displaying the flag of proscribed group Hezbollah.
Appearing on an episode 2 Promoters, 1 Pod, Radar Festival co-founder Catherine Jackson-Smith revealed how the week unfolded.
She told the podcast that she 'locked down' all social media last weekend following Bob Vylan's performance at Glastonbury festival.
However, her team still got abuse over email, as well as a threatening phone call she personally received from an unknown number.
The festival organiser said that she did not want to pull the headliner, but by the start of the week, it became clear she had no choice.
She said: "We spoke to Bob Vylan themselves and their team left at that point and went through everything and that was categorically one of the most horrendous professional conversations that I've ever had."
Ms Jackson-Smith added that, despite the venue being 'supportive' to the independent festival, she claims it was 'put very blunty' to her team that if Bob Vylan's performance went ahead as scheduled, the venue would not be allowed to open its doors on the Saturday (July 5). She said she genuinely didn't know 'who above' made the decision.
She said: "What would you do? We've got 41 other bands that are travelling here. They've all paid for flights and Underoath are travelling from America for this gig. I didn't want to phone up Underoath and say, 'hey guys, never mind.'
"Financially, that puts us in an incredibly precarious situation because, as I stress, because it's [fellow co-founder] Joe [James] and myself. That's a lot of liability at our feet. People have travelled thousands of miles. How can we turn around and say, 'right, well…'?"
On Friday (July 4), it was revealed that Irish metal band The Scratch had pulled out of the festival 'in solidarity' with Bob Vylan.
They were not the only band to pull out of the three-day event, but the progressive rock and metal festival still went ahead.
Ms Jackson-Smith said that that the team had already started drawing up a list of alternative headliners they would try to book.
As part of this process, they consulted a list of bands that openly came out against what was described as 'censorship' of Kneecap.
However, she revealed that Mr James, who she founded the festival with, wanted to book Kneecap as the headliner instead.
She said: "Joe's first response was, 'what if we did Kneecap as a secret set?' It makes a statement without having to make a statement and that is what we wanted to do."
On Tuesday (July 2) a Trafford council spokesperson said: 'Over the last few days, Council officers have been involved in extensive discussions behind the scenes with police and the venue about concerns surrounding the forthcoming performance of Bob Vylan at Victoria Warehouse. We have now been advised that the promoter has cancelled the act and we believe this is the right decision.'
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