IRISH rap trio Kneecap played to a sold-out crowd at the O2 Academy in Glasgow on Tuesday evening after being axed from the city's TRNSMT music festival.
The group were due to headline the King Tut's stage on Friday at Glasgow Green but were cut from the line-up amid a row over an investigation by counter-terror police into band member Liam Og O hAnnaidh, stage name Mo Chara.
However, despite being dropped from TRNSMT, Kneecap played to a packed crowd, with tickets for the show selling out within 80 seconds, as they took aim at Scotland’s First Minister, John Swinney, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Around 10 minutes into their performance, the group asked the crowd: “What's your first minister's name?”
They then swore before adding: “They stopped us playing TRNSMT, but they can't stop us playing Glasgow.”
The gig also saw the trio leading a chant against Starmer, who had called for the group to be dropped from Glastonbury last month.
Several fans sporting pro-Palestinian flags and banners were also spotted arriving before the show.
Kneecap said “hats off” to the activists in a post on X/Twitter, as they added they were “buzzing to play one of our favourite cities”.
One of the biggest reactions from the crowd during the set reportedly came when O hAnnaidh said the British Government had “done nothing for Ireland and nothing for Glasgow”.
Chants against Starmer were reprised near the end of the band's set, which concluded with The Recap, about their successful court battle with the UK Government over being discriminated against for a funding grant.
