Latest news with #TheClash
Sky News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Who are Bob Vylan - the duo who led anti-IDF chant at Glastonbury?
Musicians, especially punk acts, making headlines for their politics is nothing new. 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 said 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. In a statement posted on Instagram, Bobby Vylan said: "Teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place. "As we grow older and our fire starts to possibly dim under the suffocation of adult life and all its responsibilities, it is incredibly important that we encourage and inspire future generations to pick up the torch that was passed to us." 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, the Irish-language rap trio kept on the bill despite calls for them to be axed as one band member has been charged with a terror offence. 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."
Sky News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Who are Bob Vylan - the duo who 'very much crossed the line' at Glastonbury with anti-IDF chant?
Musicians, especially punk acts, making headlines for their politics is nothing new. 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."
Sky News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Who are Bob Vylan - the rap band who 'very much crossed the line' at Glastonbury with anti-IDF chant?
Musicians, especially punk acts, making headlines for their politics is nothing new. 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."
BBC News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
How Glastonbury Festival is keeping spirit of The Clash frontman alive
Tucked away at the top of Glastonbury Festival is the only stage actually dedicated to a rock legend. Strummerville overlooks a sea of tipis and is named in memory of Joe Strummer, The Clash's lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, who died in is run by his widow, Lucinda Tait, who says it "means everything" to her to keep his memory alive in the place he "absolutely loved".Strummerville is one of the festival's smaller and more intimate stages, which Lucinda says is all about "meeting people, sharing opinions, sharing musical genres and ideas".There is a circle of sofas safely placed around a camp fire, a nod back to the days when Strummer would come to the festival with his family in the said: "The area between the two big stages was just purely for trucks, lorries, people that worked at the festival."That's where everybody parked and camped up, and Joe started a campfire there, and it was really for artists or the security or the stewards, it had that kind of vibe."He was a big champion of giving people time, space and an opportunity to air their music or their views, or whatever, and that's what the campfire was about."It was really about a meeting of minds because the fire does something, it just makes you relax, it makes you talk and think, it opens you up." Glastonbury 2025: Full line-up and stage times for the weekendIn pictures: Glastonbury Festival day three'We want to give you best seat in house for Glasto' Over the years, a friendship formed between the singer and Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis, with Strummer attending the festival "through thick and thin"."We were there right for those really, really wet ones, when the festival was abandoned and the stages were shut down."I think Michael had a soft spot for Joe because Joe always championed the festival when everyone was saying, 'oh, it's just a mud bath'," Lucinda said."I think there was a mutual respect for each other and Joe just felt a connection to this place, keeping his spirit alive means everything," she added. Despite attending the festival year after year, Strummer only officially played the event once, in 1999 with his band The Mescaleros."It was interesting to see him really hyped up before he went on stage."And he just so wanted to do it well, and he did. It was amazing."But it was interesting to see him nervous, because it meant so much to him," Lucinda stage's set up means it is often the perfect place for Glastonbury's legendary secret sets, as well as less well-known bands to play. "The bands that we have are mainly not on the big, big radar, but we have wonderful people like Olivia Dean, who we've championed for about five or six years," Lucinda its cosy vibe, the whole hill around Strummerville gets packed with Thursday night the band Fat Dog played, leaving the "whole hill heaving"."I thought I was going to come down here this morning and it was going to be a level playing field, as I thought the people would have just bounced the ground flat. It was mega," Lucinda of course, it also draws fans of The Clash. "We were worried when they moved us up here that no one would come up the hill, no one would find us, but we just made it really special."A lot of people just want to talk about Joe, how to let go and 1979 and 'I was at that gig in Bristol when…' and it's just lovely."Strummerville has introduced young people to Joe's music, but also his ethos."People come and hang out, and it's lovely to see so many young people, it's just great."And what would Strummer think of it all?"Oh, he'd love it. I don't think he'd leave the campfire," Lucinda said.
The Herald Scotland
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Buzzcocks on how punk went from Glasgow ban to Bellahouston
On Saturday though a star-studded lineup of the scene's progenitors - Stranglers included - will headline Bellahouston Park, capacity circa 35,000. Buzzcocks were there from the beginning, as Britain's youth turned to spiky hair and safety pins, and they'll be there in Glasgow on Saturday when the combat boots are dusted off by the city's elder punks. Read More: Who better, then, to chart the journey from banned to Bellahouston. Guitarist and last suriving original member Steve Diggle tells The Herald: "We brought the Sex Pistols to Manchester when it (punk) was kind of unknown, really. "That's where we all met, the next day me, Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley plugged into an amp and a terrible beauty was born, to quote Yates. "A couple of weeks later we opened for the Pistols in Manchester, we got reviewed and that put it on the map. So we were there right at the beginning. "We were doing that in Manchester and The Clash and the Pistols in London and we got to know them well, there was a connection between us because all of this was kind of new at the time. "The landscape was kind of dead, really, you had prog rock bands but they'd run their course and nothing was happening for a few years. "Suddenly you got this excitement, and everybody came alive." The Britain into which punk was birthed was one of high inflation and unemployment, of industrial unrest and a shifting political climate. It was famously referred to as "the sick man of Europe", with unemployment reaching 5.5% in 1978, the year the first Buzzcocks album was released. Diggle says: "Britain was black and white and grey - it was just boring, you know? "I was coming up to 20 and you kind of wanted some excitement. I'd been playing guitar since I was 17 and for three years I'd been trying to write songs and all that stuff and then suddenly this punk rock thing happened. "It hit the country like a carpet bomb, it was an explosion of the imagination - people thought things were possible, including ourselves, it was like an exchange between the bands and the crowd. "There wasn't any rivalry then, because we all started at the same time so if I run into a member of The Clash, or the Pistols, or The Jam we know where we come from so there isn't any rivalry. "It was great, we'd put a record out and they'd acknowledge that, then we'd acknowledge theirs. "It seemed like every week a single from one of those bands was coming out, it was a magical time." The poster for the punk all dayer (Image: DF Concerts) As punk was booming in the UK a similar thing was happening across the Atlantic with bands like The Ramones, Dead Kennedys and Television. However, Diggle doesn't feel there was a great deal of cultural overlap. He says: "The Ramones released their first album just before we released Spiral Scratch (the first Buzzcocks EP) and that was kind of a big influence, that first Ramones album was great. "I think it inspired The Clash and really everybody, it was fast and furious and straight to the point - all the music was direct in those early days. "So we had The Ramones and in the past MC5, Iggy Pop, The Suzies and all that stuff, and obviously The Velvet Underground. "But me and Pete grew up as kids of the 60s really, with The Kinks, The Beatles, The Who. "So we were aware of the American part but this was more of a British thing, all those bands were very British and thinking about things more over here, the stuff we were all going through at the time. "Actually when we first went to America, The Ramones came to see us. We got off the stage and they were all there, and they were kind of saying, 'we do that straight ahead stuff but you guys take it somewhere else' so they loved that about the Buzzcocks." Buzzcocks in 1978 (Image: Newsquest) British punk also carried a more political bent, though Diggle's band were less overt than contemporaries like The Clash. He says: "The Buzzcocks sang a lot about the human condition, you know? "There were political ones, Joe Strummer loved my song 'Autonomy' on the first album. "We had distorted guitars and we had that attitude, we had things like 'Orgasm Addict' (which was banned by the BBC). "The Clash were a bit more externally political but a lot of my songs are political underneath. Songs like 'Why She's A Girl From A Chain Store', we had a lot of complexity with it as well, we had a bit of existentialism about us. "It wasn't as simple as going 'the government's wrong', it was dealing with other complexities as well. We knew the government was wrong but it's not a case of thinking the crowd is so simple they don't understand those kind of things. "When we all started it was all under this umbrella of punk, initially no-one could particularly differentiate between any of them. "But then as we kept making albums each band got its own identity, so even within that movement we were all different." Though bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols had their pop chops too, Buzzcocks were perhaps the most melodic of the first wave bands. Their influence can be heard in the lineage of punk and its offshoots, from Nirvana and Green Day to Supergrass and the Manic Street Preachers. L-R. Steve Diggle, Steve Garvey, John Maher, Pete Shelley (Image: Fin Costello/Redferns) Diggle says: "It's quite amazing, at the time you're just making a record you don't think you'll be inspiring other people. "It's a great compliment, Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers said 'when we started we were playing 'Autonomy'. REM, U2, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and loads of other bands you've probably never heard of will say 'we used to do a Buzzcocks song when we were starting out'. "You can hear a lot of echoes of Buzzcocks in other people's records, Green Day and people like that, which is not something we ever set out to do." The group has somewhat come full-circle, and will once again play alongside the Sex Pistols at the 'punk all-dayer' at Glasgow Green on June 21, as will The Stranglers, The Undertones, Skids and The Rezillos. Punk's not dead, as they say, though admittedly some of those groups' former members are. Diggle says: "They still do Shakespeare and he's a lot older than us, so we've got time! "We were supposed to headline Hyde Park twice and were banned because we were a punk band, but we've gone full-circle here. "It'll be a great day playing with all those bands. It's still alive and well, you know? Still rolling on." The Punk All Dayer takes place at Bellahouston Park on Saturday, June 21. Tickets are available here.
