Police investigate Bob Vylan over ‘death to IDF' call at gig before Glastonbury
The Met Police are investigating comments 'allegedly made during a concert at Alexandra Palace earlier this year'
©Press Association
Punk duo Bob Vylan are being investigated by police after allegedly calling for 'death to every single IDF soldier out there' at a concert one month before Glastonbury.
The pair are already being investigated by Avon and Somerset Police over their appearance at Worthy Farm when rapper Bobby Vylan led crowds in chants of 'death, death to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces)' during their livestreamed performance at the Somerset music festival last weekend.
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Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Bob Vylan at All Together Now 2025: ‘Our fight is the Irish fight. And the Irish fight is the Palestinians' fight'
Bob Vylan Something Kind of Wonderful stage, Sunday ★★★★☆ All Together Now 's Something Kind of Wonderful tent is a sea of Palestine flags as the iconoclastic punks Bob Vylan make their entrance. The British duo had been booked to play a smaller stage but were bumped up after their recent Glastonbury performance went viral. 'Apparently there has been a lot of interest in the band recently,' says its frontman, Bobby Vylan (whose real name is widely reported to be Pascal Robinson-Foster). 'And so they have to move us over here.' He's referring to the uproar that ensued at the British megafestival after Vylan led chants of 'Death, death, death to the IDF', referring to the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. [ Glastonbury 2025: All that Kneecap and Bob Vylan outrage drowned out the air strike on the cafe birthday party Opens in new window ] Several festivals cancelled the group, and the United States revoked their visas. But they've made it to Waterford, where they put in a fantastically furious set that breathtakingly meshes punk and politics. READ MORE Wearing tracksuit leggings and shoulder-length hair, Vylan starts off bouncing on the spot. He encourages the audience to warm up with some stretching and then plunge into We Live Here, an acid-bath commentary on racism in Britain and its ever-mutating forms ('have a drink and puff your chest out / not a racist, you're just proud'). Long before Glastonbury, Bob Vylan – Bobby is backed by the drummer 'Bob Vylan' – had a reputation for getting stuck in: at a show at Whelan's in Dublin in 2023, they called out by name artists who they felt weren't advocating on behalf of Gaza. There's more where that came from at All Together Now, all of it cheered wildly by the audience. All Together Now 2025: Bobby Vylan on stage on Sunday. Photograph: Kieran Frost/Redferns Vylan's message is that his forebears' experiences are interwoven with those of Irish people and of the population in Palestine today. 'As black people in England we understand that our struggle, as it is connected to our homelands, whether it be Jamaica or we trace it all the way back to the African continent ... is the Irish fight. And the Irish fight is the Palestinians' fight. And the Palestinians' fight is the fight of all people that have suffered under occupation, under colonialism, under imperialism.' He also references attacks on the group back in Britain that echo earlier calls to have Kneecap , the Belfast/Derry rappers, dropped from Glastonbury. 'We will not have any right-wing media – or any media at all ... even the soft left – tell us we have gone too far. We will not have them tell us that we should keep our mouths shut and focus on the music.' There is now a traditional call-and-response of Free, Free Palestine. At the end, Vylan says, 'Have you heard this one, though?' and leaves the room hanging. Next come shouts of 'Death, death, death to the IDF' – though only from a minority. (The singer does not join in.) They finish with Hunger Games, a riotous diatribe about the human price of austerity and the cost-of-living crisis. As things stand they're in danger of becoming better known for their speeches than for their songs, but the lesson of this brilliantly pummelling onslaught is that Bob Vylan's music is more than capable of speaking for itself.
Irish Examiner
5 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Bob Vylan, CMAT, Fontaines... 10 talking points and highlights from All Together Now 2025
1 Bob Vylan The UK punk-rap duo who have had tours and festival slots cancelled since their chants of 'Death to the IDF' at Glastonbury six weeks ago were warmly welcomed in Co Waterford on Sunday night. They mentioned they were originally due to play a smaller stage at ATN before 'everything that's gone on'. Cue the swelling crowd chanting 'Death to the IDF'. Not once during the 45-minute set do Bob Vylan mention 'Israel' or 'IDF' but they are synonymous with what is happening and the self-described BBC Bandits make a couple of impassioned pleas. 'Remember, it is one struggle, it is one fight that we must all join and fight together. You understand it more than those cowards back home.' They also thank the promotors and organisers of the festival 'for having a fucking backbone because they could have very really removed us like a couple of festivals did but they didn't, they stood firm with us and we appreciate that massively'. 2 Palestine is the issue All across the weekend, Palestinian flags are waved by crowds and watermelon clothing is abundant. People are here to have fun but Palestine is obviously at the forefront of many people's thoughts Friday night headliners Fontaines DC declare 'Free Palestine!' and the big screen states: 'Israel is committing genocide. Use your voice.' The following night, CMAT leads the crowd in a chant of 'Free, free Palestine' as she exits following one of the best shows the festival has ever seen. Even Bob Geldof - who drew opprobrium for only speaking out on the atrocities last month, some 21 months into the conflict in Gaza - brings the Boomtown Rats' Sunday afternoon show to a halt during their biggest song, I Don't Like Mondays, to draw attention to Palestinians' plight. 3 Fontaines the conquering heroes Fontaines DC on stage at All Together Now 2025. Picture: Aiesha Wong Fontaines DC's last show in Ireland was at Dublin's 3Arena before Christmas and it feels like the entire 30,000 attendees at the sixth edition of All Together Now have turned out at the main stage to welcome them back to Ireland on Friday night. In the interim they've played to 45,000 at Finsbury Park in London. On Friday, every second person seems to be sporting the Fontaines DC-emblazoned Bohemian FC jersey. Surely the best band merchandise in recent years. Chatten, clad all in black, conducts the crowd through the likes of Skinty Fia and Jackie Down the Line. A Hero's Death, with the hopeful refrain "Life ain't always empty", shows the simple but effective way in which Fontaines DC inspire devotion. It's not all amazing, though, as the middle section of the set needs Big to shake it free of a plodding couple of songs, In The Modern World then inducing another mass singalong before they finish with a riotous Starburster. Earlier in the evening, Spanish rock band Hinds told the crowd that their first gig in Ireland, back in 2016, featured Fontaines on support duty. It's been a meteoric decade for them since - who knows where they go next. Wherever they want - they haven't put a foot wrong yet. 4 Busy crowd All Together Now has been sold out for months and it feels busier than usual. It's the first year that they've opened the site up to all ticketholders for the Thursday, the handful of acts who performed on the night enjoyed good-sized crowds. All Together Now 2025. 5 Site tweaks Organisers have made a few tweaks to the site this year. As usual the main thoroughfare has the giant wooden deer statue looking over it towards beautiful Curraghmore House. The Bandstand, scene of lots of fun over the years - including a storming set by the Knocknaheeney's finest the Kabin Crew last year - has had a glowup, becoming the Bandstand Arena, with towering pillars of lights and speakers all around. It looks and sounds great. 6 Cork band Cliffords the next big thing Another new addition, between the main stage and Something Kind of Wonderful, is the small new bands tent, called Flourish. It plays host to Cork five-piece Cliffords on Friday afternoon - another band to benefit from the busier than normal early turnout. Judging by the reaction, with almost all the songs shouted back at them, they seem primed to lead the next generation of bands in 'doing a Fontaines'. Cliffords at All Together Now 2025. Picture: Eoghan O'Sullivan Iona Lynch already looks and sounds like the quintessential frontwoman, explaining how Cliffords hadn't even played a show outside of Ireland a year ago. She calls for a moshpit at one stage because "We haven't had one of those before; we're not Gurriers," she jokes of the Dublin post-punk noiseniks who play ATN on Saturday night. Lynch is happy to declare, halfway through the show, that it's already the best gig they've ever played. It feels like one everyone in the hot, heaving tent will remember for a long time past this weekend. 7 Wet Leg look the part Another band who have enjoyed a meteoric ascent are Wet Leg, who exploded in popularity with the winking song of the summer 2021, Chaise Longue. Since then, there have been Grammys and Brit Awards and stadium support slots with the likes of Foo Fighters. For their second album Moisturizer, released last month, frontwoman Rhian Teasdale has completely transformed her look. Maybe it's simply after finding the unexpected new love that informs the new record, but she has gone from a previously unassuming brunette from the Isle of Wight to writhing and crawling around on the ground, flexing her muscles and shaking her ass in silver hot pants. She looks like the quintessential rock star now. She started the band with Hester Chambers who still writes and performs with Wet Leg but has taken a step back from the limelight due to a heady dose of social anxiety. It's interesting to watch her play guitar in their set ahead of Fontaines DC. She goes long stretches without looking at the crowd but still seems to be enjoying herself. How could anyone not have fun at a Wet Leg show? Strokes-esque new songs like Davina McCall and Mangetout sound great, while they also play the album closer, U andMe at Home Again, for what they say is the first time. 8 CMAT steals the show on Saturday CMAT on stage at All Together Now 2025. Nobody exits a CMAT show thinking she hasn't left it all on the stage. She's a capital-P pop Performer, regularly seen dramatically fainting to her knees or playing coy pantomime with the crowd. On her Saturday night show, Co Meath's finest surveys the huge crowd in front of her and confidently estimates it must indeed be more than the population of said town. After a summer of heavy touring ahead of the release of third album in four years Euro-country, she and the self-described Sexy CMAT band aka "the greatest Irish country rock and roll band" are all the screaming masses want. And boy do they get it. Eleven songs in about 75 minutes, it's not only the show of the weekend (sorry Fontaines DC) but probably the best gig in six years of All Together Now. She revels as frontwoman, stomping across the stage, waving her butt, joking "no school tomorrow" as she cracks open a can. She finishes, as usual, with Stay for Something, jumping into the moshpit for a bop. The set began with five old songs; it could easily be CMAT karaoke such is the fervour with which they're roared by the crowd. But it's the new songs that will take CMAT's star higher. Take a Sexy Picture of Me enjoyed a viral dance moment earlier this year. Penultimate song and latest single Euro-country is performed live for the first She mentions emigration and various other social ills, pinning it on the government of 20-25 years ago. The song is brilliant, detailing "all the Berties, all the envelopes who really hurt me" and how "I was 12 when the das starting killing themselves all around me". It all adds up to one of the great festival performances. 9 Irish acts As well as the headliners, there are plenty of impressive Irish acts scattered throughout the festival. During the afternoon, the queue to get into The Last City area is about a dozen deep, with DJ Rory Sweeney hosting a series of rappers as part of the Irish Hash Mafia Cypher. Enniscorthy rapper Lil Skag has built a connection with the young audience, just a "regular man doing regular activities". Morgana on stage at All Together Now 2025. Trapattoni, referencing the former Ireland soccer manager, is a smart track that marks Skag out as one to keep an eye on. Over at Something Kind of Wonderful, it's a rare outing for traditional Irish music foursome Landless, whose voices weave together majestically. The crowd is sitting and lying down letting the sound wave over them. Just over two years on since her death, they finish with a beautiful cover of a Sinéad O'Connor song, In This Heart, which they dedicate to the people of Palestine. Meanwhile, at Lovely Days, Morgana, formerly half of Saint Sister, is revelling in her new disco-pop direction. 10 Good vibes It felt busier than previous years at All Together Now 2025. But the vibe of the festival has not changed at all. Everyone is friendly and drinking it all in, enjoying themselves. It's a beautiful atmosphere - helped perhaps by the nice bank holiday weather. It also comprises age groups from young - fair play to the dad pulling his two kids up a hill with all his might during the afternoon - to savvy veterans with camping seats at hand.
The Irish Sun
16 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Mums & children dressed in pink peacefully protest outside controversial migrant hotel before yobs clash with cops
They were among 200 anti-migrant marchers waving flags, including a giant St George's Cross, and calling for an end to small boat crossings THE PINK PROTEST Mums & children dressed in pink peacefully protest outside controversial migrant hotel before yobs clash with cops MOTHERS and children dressed in pink protested outside Britain's most controversial migrant hotel yesterday — before masked yobs hijacked the event and clashed with police. Demonstrators chanting 'Save our kids and women' shut down a busy road outside the four-star Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf, East London. 5 Women make their point on the peaceful pink protest march Credit: Louis Wood 5 Migrants arriving at the Britannia in the early hours of Saturday 5 Women marching past the Britannia International yesterday Credit: Louis Wood They were among 200 anti-migrant marchers waving flags, including a giant St George's Cross, and calling for an end to small boat crossings. Last night, the Met Police issued a Section 42 dispersal order, in effect banning protests outside the hotel for 28 days. Videos online showed officers removing protesters after hotel residents claimed they faced 'distress and alarm' from demonstrators outside. One officer told a protester: 'You have to leave now and you're not to return within 28 days. 'If you don't comply with that, you will be arrested.' Earlier, women had performed a conga while a line of police guarded the 40 or so asylum seekers who were moved in under cover of darkness at 1.30am on Saturday. But the protest threatened to boil over shortly after 3pm when two men in balaclava masks threw red and white smoke flares. The pair were held and searched by police but released back into the crowds. Other masked thugs then stormed into the crowd, setting off flares. Yobs disguising their identities were surrounded by police as the women and children in pink dispersed. Protesters and police scuffle outside Thistle City Barbican Hotel Skirmishes broke out between officers and the masked demonstrators, all dressed in black, with at least one man led away in cuffs. After being held back from female protesters, the crowd of about 25 flare-wielding yobs instead charged towards metal fences set up around the perimeter of the hotel. They then began to chant: 'Let us through.' Protester Kim, 60, a resident of the area and part of the mothers' gathering, branded the violence disgraceful. She said: 'It ruined the atmosphere. I don't want to see that and I don't want my kids to see it either. 'If that was one of my children I would be embarrassed. This was meant to be a peaceful protest for women and children.' We're concerned for our women and children. We don't know who these people are, what beliefs they hold and if they have a criminal background elsewhere. Our women and children do not feel safe, and that's why we don't want them here Sun source The £425-a-night, 500-room hotel — said to have 'superb views over London' — was designated for asylum seekers two weeks ago. It meant tourists turning up with pre-existing bookings were turned away at the entrance by Home Office-contracted security guards. Yesterday, more footage went viral showing delivery motorbike drivers attempting to leave the hotel and being surrounded by protesters. It is thought the deliveries were for hotel staff and residents. Re-posting footage of the hotel yesterday, Tory MP and Shadow Cabinet minister Neil O'Brien blasted: 'Joke regime. We must end it all.' One mother at the protest told The Sun: 'We're concerned for our women and children. We don't know who these people are, what beliefs they hold and if they have a criminal background elsewhere. Our women and children do not feel safe, and that's why we don't want them here.' 5 Police tackle an anti-migrant protester near the luxury hotel Credit: George Cracknell Wright 5 Masked men let off red and white smoke flares during the protest Credit: George Cracknell Wright Local resident Jen, 28, told The Sun: 'I don't mind the fact they're immigrants, I am one myself. 'Everybody has their reasons to move but we're not happy with how we weren't informed.' A Met Police spokeswoman said: 'Officers are deployed in the vicinity of the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf. 'At one point, officers intervened after flares were let off in the crowd. 'Several people were searched. No further flares were found and there were no arrests. 'Officers remain in the area to provide reassurance to local residents and businesses, to ensure that any further protest takes place peacefully, and to respond to any incidents.' But the use of the flash financial district hotel, one of about 210 in use for asylum, was previously branded an 'insult' to taxpayers. The total asylum hotel bill is more than £3billion a year. Home Office officials have rented 400 rooms at the Britannia for £81-a-night, meaning the Canary Wharf bill alone will cost up to £226,000 a week. It was first reported at the end of July that the luxury four-star hotel — said to be 'the perfect base for a city break' — would be used to house migrants. Last week, workers were seen hauling beds and mattresses into the hotel for the arrival of hundreds of asylum seekers. Footage shared online caught all-male asylum seekers, most dressed in grey tracksuits, getting off a coach in the dark on Saturday. 'Insult' to taxpayers The first arrivals were led into the hotel to be given rooms. They were aided by the masked security guards. A Met Police spokeswoman confirmed at least one arrest was made outside the hotel. She said: 'One man was arrested on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker after an officer was pushed. He was taken into custody.' Nationwide protests on Saturday led to nine arrests. Residents in Islington, North London, gathered at the Thistle City Barbican hotel under the banner, 'Thistle Barbican needs to go — locals say no'. A rival group from Stand Up To Racism, supported by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, formed a counter-protest. Seven arrests were made related to breaching Public Order Act conditions. From inside the hotel, men, believed to be migrants, blew kisses. On Friday night, a man was arrested on suspicion of attempted arson after a packet of lit firelighters was thrown at police at the Stanwell Hotel, Spelthorne, Surrey. National protests were sparked after Hadush Kebatu, 38, an Ethiopian asylum seeker at the Bell Hotel, in Epping, Essex, was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old, which he denies.
