Wallopers

The Last Dinner Party are among a group of artists to have boycotted Victorious Festival after The Mary Wallopers’ set was cut short for displaying a Palestinian flag.

On Friday (August 22), the Irish band were halfway through their opening song at the Portsmouth festival when their sound was cut by festival organisers and the Palestine flag on stage with them was taken away. As the crowd started to boo, the band led a chant of “free, free Palestine”.

The Mary Wallopers updated fans on Saturday with an Instagram post reading: “Yesterday, a famine was declared in Gaza, where at least 65 people were killed by Israeli attacks, all the while Israel pushed ahead with plans to split the West Bank in two. These are the important facts about yesterday.”

Alongside an unedited video of their set being cut short, they added: “The festival have released a misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant and not the band’s call to Free Palestine. Our video clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of ‘Free Palestine’. The same crew member is later heard in the video saying, ‘you aren’t playing until the flag is removed’.”

“We completely reject Victorious’ portrayal of today’s events and request that they retract their statement immediately. We know this is getting some attention and we don’t want another distraction which takes attention away from the genocide that is happening in Palestine,” they added.

Now, a number of other artists have announced they will not be playing at Victorious this weekend, including The Last Dinner Party, The Academic and Cliffords.

“We are outraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious,” The Last Dinner Party wrote in a statement. “As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today.”

“As Gazans are deliberately plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence, it is urgent and obvious that artists use their platform to draw attention to the cause. To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.”

“Throughout this summer we have used our stages to encourage our audience to donate even a drink’s worth of money to Medical Aid for Palestinians, and today we urge you more than ever to do the same,” they continued.

“We are so deeply sorry to our fans who were looking forward to seeing us today, and we are devastated to be put in this position that upsets both us and you.”

The Mary Wallopers’ fellow Irish artists The Academic and Cliffords have also pulled out of the festival. The Academic said they “can’t in good conscience stand up and play at a festival that silences free speech and the right to express your views”, while Cliffords said, “we refuse to play if we are to be censored for showing our support to the people of Palestine”.

On Friday, Victorious told NME that “although a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist’s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist’s decision to stop the song. The decision by the event management to cut the sound and end the performance was only taken after the band used a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context.”

The festival has since posted a statement that said they “didn’t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached. This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all concerned.”

“We absolutely support the right of artists to freely express their views from the stage, within the law and the inclusive nature of the event,” they added. “Our policy of not allowing flags of any kind, which has been in place for many years for wider event management and safety reasons, is not meant to compromise that right.”

“We accept that, although mics remained live for longer, sound for The Mary Wallopers’ audience was cut as described in the band’s video and that comments after that were not audible to the public. We are sorry that this situation has come about and will be making a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people.”

Victorious is one of many festivals to be operated by Superstruct Entertainment, which is owned by the controversial global investment firm KKR, which has been criticised by many artists for its alleged stakes in weapons manufacturing companies and Israel corporations operating in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Several other festivals that are backed by KKR have addressed their concerns about the connection. Tramlines said they would “never send them a single Euro”, while Mighty Hoopla stated their “clear opposition to KKR’s unethical investments”.

One group of 50 artists, which included Massive Attack and Brian Eno, signed an open letter urging Field Day to distance itself from KKR in May, while another 11 artists announced that they were boycotting the festival in solidarity with Palestine.

Victorious Festival is running on the Southsea seafront this weekend, with Kings Of Leon, Queens Of The Stone Age and Vampire Weekend topping the bill.