Bob Vylan have been banned from playing a Manchester festival a day after they said they were being “targeted for speaking up” on Palestine during a controversial Glastonbury set.
The punk rap duo will no longer play the headline slot at Radar festival this weekend. The act is the subject of a police investigation for leading crowds in chants of “death, death to the IDF”, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
A statement posted on the festival’s Instagram account said: “Bob Vylan will not be appearing at Radar festival this weekend.”
The headliner slot for Saturday now reads “TBA” (to be announced) on the website of the festival, which takes place at Victoria Warehouse from Friday to Sunday.
In response, the group shared the festival’s statement on Instagram with the caption: “Silence is not an option. We will be fine, the people of Palestine are hurting. Manchester we will be back.”
The chant that sparked the furore was made by the band’s frontman, Pascal Robinson-Foster, who goes by the alias Bobby Vylan, on stage at Glastonbury and streamed live on the BBC.
The broadcaster later said the chant was “antisemitic”. It was called “appalling hate speech” by the government and “vile Jew-hatred” by the UK’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis.
Bob Vylan, who formed in Ipswich in 2017, also had their US visas revoked in the aftermath of the performance.
In a statement on Instagram, Bob Vylan said: “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine … a machine that has destroyed much of Gaza.”
They said they were “a distraction from the story”, adding: “We are being targeted for speaking up.”
Israel began bombing Gaza on 7 October 2023 after Hamas – a proscribed terror group in the UK – killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and took 251 others hostage.
Since then the IDF has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza – including hundreds of journalists and aid workers – with more than a third of the casualties thought to be children.
Many thousands more have been injured. However, it is impossible to independently gather casualty figures as Israel does not allow foreign journalists into Gaza.
Bob Vylan are still expected to perform at the Boardmasters surfing and music festival in Newquay, Cornwall, in August.
