Rock band cancels tour after drummer hauled off plane by US border control
The band explained in an online post that Said was removed from a plane at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, despite being a legal US resident.
En route to their summer tour before the incident, the band has had no contact with Said for two days.
The drummer is a Mexican citizen but a legal permanent resident of the United States and the holder of a green card.
Said has been a resident of Austin, Texas since the 1980s, according to the Austin Chronicle.
'We are heartbroken to announce we have to cancel our upcoming European tour,' the band wrote on Instagram on Wednesday.
'Our drummer, Yamal Said, who is a Mexican citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States (green card holder) was forcibly removed from our flight to Europe by Customs and Border Patrol [sic] at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Monday May 12.
'He has not been released, and we have been unable to contact him. We are currently working with an immigration lawyer to find out more information and to attempt to secure his release.'
An update to the statement on Wednesday afternoon told fans that the drummer had 'secured the legal representation he needs.'
'We are waiting to hear what comes next,' they said. 'We want to reiterate that we truly don't know what's going on. We have more questions than answers, but we will keep you posted as much as we can. At this time the family asks for privacy as they navigate the situation.'
A stalwart of the Austin music scene, Said formerly played with the band the Black and works as a music instructor for the Texas School for the Blind, according to the Austin Chronicle.
The band was scheduled to go on an eight-date European tour to play and promote their latest album Holus Bolus. The tour, alongside the Swedish band Orsak:Oslo, was scheduled to begin on 15 May in the Netherlands.
In a social media statement, Orsak:Oslo, who will continue with the tour, wrote: 'No one should be pulled off a plane and jailed for simply trying to travel and make art with their band. We won't pretend to understand the full complexity of the situation, but this should not happen anywhere.'
Said's detention is part of a wider immigration crackdown under the Trump administration.
On Monday, Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, said that the US has deported roughly 139,000 illegal immigrants since Trump returned to the White House. More Trending
On April 28, Trump signed an executive order targeting sanctuary cities that have acted like havens for undocumented immigrants and refused to cooperate with the federal government's moves to arrest them.
The order directs the attorney general and homeland security secretary to publish a list of cities and states that have not complied with federal laws around immigration.
The President also signed executive orders with the aim of expanding ICE's ability to arrest and detain unlawful migrants on US soil.
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The National
29 minutes ago
- The National
Why we made a new theatre show exploring male violence
He isn't keen to be specific about his first experience of violence, but it was bad enough for him to want the superpowers of Spider-Man to cope. He didn't quite manage that, but he did become an MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter, which later inspired him to collaborate on a fascinating theatrical exploration of men and violence. Pete LannonHis friend, colleague and collaborator on the project, Pete Lannon, says men can see violence as 'about a kind of taking power and having some kind of control, like being able to solve your problems in a simple way, as opposed to the more complicated, structural problems that exist in the real world that you feel powerless to do anything about'. He adds that a lot of the violence in modern media represents a 'fantasy that you can punch a bunch of bad guys and solve the problem. The complicated thing for me is that that's often the only way of expressing yourself or saving the day that you see, especially for men. 'I think those stories can be really enjoyable but also … is it really the only way that we can express ourselves as men? Is it the only way we can solve our problems? As much as I'd love to be able to just punch my way through the problems that I see around me, is that the best way?' These are just some of the questions asked by a powerful theatrical show put together by Lannon, Banks and the creative team around them and about to set off on a UK tour in a matter of weeks which runs until mid-October. READ MORE: MoD claims serious radioactive leak at Faslane 'posed no risk to public' Stuntman is a compelling mix of true-life stories of violence interwoven with highly choreographed stunt fights inspired by popular action movies in a package which serves as both a celebration and critique of that genre. It's thought-provoking, highly physical, a lot of fun and involves a lot of fake blood. It also encourages comments from and debates with members of the audience. 'I started competing in boxing at a really young age,' says Banks. 'At the time, you weren't legally allowed to fight in MMA until you were 18. It was regarded as human cockfighting. 'One week after my 18th birthday, I had my first MMA fight, and I won my first three fights in four minutes combined. I was terrified every time. I was ready to die when I went out there. 'One of the most complicated things about it now, when I look back on it, is in that first fight, when this man hit me, I realised I never had to be scared again. 'I think when you've grown up and you have maybe been attacked or assaulted or you've been afraid, it's with you everywhere, all the time. It's a constant threat, and you're constantly switched on. It took a lot of years to unpack that, move away from it and realise I was safe. 'One of the stories we tell in the show is an incident where I ended up in the cells for the weekend, and I was looking at a custodial sentence for fighting. 'My MMA coach, who was a European judo champion and the UK kickboxing champion, was also a musician. He encouraged me to go to drama school.' When he began studying at what is now the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow, he met up with Lannon and the two began swapping stories from their lives. Lannon's earlier years were very different from Banks's but, again, violence burst through. 'I grew up in Berwick and my dad was a minister,' says the show's director. 'There was a very strict moral religious code. I grew up not really being allowed to watch any movies, but also with the idea that violence was something to avoid. To be the bigger man, or to turn the other cheek.' On his way to school one morning, he was attacked and assaulted by another pupil and his friends. Teachers who saw the attack did nothing to stop it. 'I thought, I'll not fight back and just try to protect myself and stop him hitting me. If I make it a fight, I'm in the wrong as well. 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A lot of the time, we're still texting each other. If one of the creative team has seen a good action movie, we're like, 'oh, we should put this bit in the show'. 'I think it also comes from this love of that kind of stylised violence, a kind of you could say glorified violence. And the tension between that and real life is very complicated. I'm not sure I really 'enjoy' action movies. 'There's always a part of me that feels very strongly that I don't like real-world violence, especially the kind of hyper-masculine aggression that you see on the street, especially when you are growing up and going out to pubs, or the kind of violence that you see in high school all the time. 'The tension between those two things – violence in films and in real life – is uncomfortable and is where the idea for the show started; what it says about men. Why are we like this? Or why are we told to be like this?' A few years after graduating from the Royal Conservatoire, Lannon and two former classmates created the performance production company Superfan. When they first thought of putting together a show like Stuntman, Banks was the first person they contacted. The early versions of the show were pretty much low-budget – or no-budget, as Banks describes them. 'In the beginning, we used sandwich bags of fake blood sellotaped to me. That was the kind of the production standard we had … very home-made.' An injection of funding in 2022 helped develop the basic idea into the version now about to tour. It now features impressive lighting and digital design, more focus on sound and music and high-impact input from fight choreographer EmmaClaire Brightlyn. Stuntman is a two-man show featuring Banks and fellow performer Sadiq Ali recreating action movie sequences in ways which challenge audiences to explore what they say about men's relationship to violence. 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'The way that we devised it then was almost like a kind of collage, like taking some of their stories, writing them and working them into something for performance, and then also a lot of staging deaths and fight scenes from movies or inspired by movies, and working on that.' The show leaves space for audience interaction, and they say they can get 'a bit rowdy'. Banks says: 'We get to experience together in that space, these acts of catharsis. It looks at the consequences, whether they're good or bad, and we wrap that whole thing up in a spectacle. 'A lot of the performances that we do are set about capturing that feeling of 'we're in this together'.' Lannon adds: 'We work really hard to find audiences who maybe wouldn't otherwise come to see contemporary theatre. It can be quite an intimate show, and the audience feel very close to the action. 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Glasgow Times
33 minutes ago
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Black DC woman shares why her quality of life has become so much better since Trump's crime crackdown
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