‘I respect them and I support their message': How Kneecap won over Glastonbury's masses

Telegraph

9 hours ago

This was a day of political pantomime at Glastonbury, a day when the usual chilled out vibes were replaced by something altogether more febrile and excitable. The chants of 'Free Palestine' that have peppered the site over the last 48 hours came to a head during three sets on the West Holts stage: from British singer Nilüfer Yanya, London hip hop duo Bob Vylan and the folk devils du jour, Irish hip hop band Kneecap. Palestinian flags made up around half the banners at these gigs, and they pepper the entire festival too.
In sweltering heat, Yanya's set closed with a backdrop that read 'More action, less noise, free Palestine' (the exhausted lunchtime crowd let out a feeble whoop), while Bob Vylan blasted execs in the music industry who supported Isreal. Vylan's set culminated in him leading the chant 'Kill the IDF', supported by a full-throated crowd, even if every audience member didn't partake.
But the heat rose even further with Kneecap, whose pro-Palestinian stance and politicised, cartoony rap drew one of the biggest crowds the West Holts – Glastonbury's third biggest stage – has ever seen, and certainly at 4pm.
This is my 22 nd time at this event and I can't recall more anticipation over a mid-afternoon act.
Tens of thousands of people were crammed onto this tiny patch of Somerset grass, a crowd so big that organisers closed the field an hour before they came on. In the shadow of Glastonbury Tor, orange and green flares blazed as chants of 'Free Palestine' and 'Free Mo Chara' (the latter a reference to the band's rapper who is alleged to have displayed a flag in support of Hezbollah) echoed around the Vale of Avalon. It's unlikely that residents of the sweetly bucolic nearby village of Pilton have ever heard anything like it.
'I respect them and I support their message, and that's why I'm here,' says Sian, 27, who has seen the band before and says they're 'amazing'. 'They're controversial but they're trying to spread a message.'
Ah yes. The message. Moral panic has swept the nation about this performance, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer saying it shouldn't happen. Behind the scenes, some big-name execs within the music industry have been lobbying Glastonbury to drop the band. But happen it did, with festival organiser Emily Eavis saying on Wednesday that all performers are 'welcome'. What's more, the whole thing was meant to be filmed by the BBC.
'The BBC's editor is going to have some f---ing job,' said Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, stage name Mó Chara, half way through the set. But that wasn't the case. The live feed was cut, despite the previous band – rock-rap duo Bob Vylan – having their set broadcast. At the time of writing it is not clear whether the BBC will show edited highlights of Kneecap or not.
Here's a Kneecap recap. The West Belfast group are Republican hip hop musicians who rap largely in the Irish language and have never hidden their disdain for the British government (they're named after the grim punishment meted out by the IRA). In April, the rappers hit the headlines when they displayed a message at California's Coachella accusing Israel of 'committing genocide against the Palestinian people'. Film then emerged of the band urging people to kill their local MP (they apologised). And earlier this month, member Ó hAnnaidh (Mo Chara), appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, charged with a terror offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig last year. The 27-year-old was bailed and will next appear in court on August 20 – in a previous statement, his band denied the offence.
Chara received a hero's welcome at the Pyramid Stage.
Chara's two bandmates – Naoise Ó Cairealláin, known as Móglaí Bap, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh, known as DJ Próvaí, a former teacher who also wears a balaclava in the colours of the Irish tricolour – bounded around in the broiling heat, crowd-surfing, encouraging a mosh pit and generally stoking the cauldron of chaos. The trio thanked the organising Eavis family for standing by them amid pressure to cancel the show.
I lost count of the number of times chants of 'F--- Keir Starmer' and 'Free Palestine' rang out. The crowd was crushingly tight to be in. There was never a sense that things could tip into violence though. The concert was what I'd call an angry celebration. The band were preaching to the converted here.
One 26-year-old audience member has snuck away from his friends to watch Kneecap today. 'A lot of them are Jewish, and I have to keep it quiet,' he says. But his motives aren't what you'd expect. His mum runs an Irish centre in Leeds and he picked up the Irish language through his grandfather. Despite their almost-cancellation in the outside world, Kneecap really connect with people.
'You're just a s--- Jeremy Corbyn,' went one chant about Starmer. Kneecap's politics can be something of a joke.
Then there's this. The bare faces of the people wearing balaclavas in the audience suggested they weren't even born when the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. To them, shorn of all context, this is dress-up. Cosplay. Riverdance for rebels. And once the concert was over, these same hoards dispersed to watch chart-friendly performers such as Raye, Charli XCX or the Scissor Sisters.
Kneecap provided a 'moment' for sure. Fans were happy. Walking out, Vincent Poel, 28, said there was 'exactly the right amount' of politics in the trio's set. But, at the end of the day and after all the noise, this was just entertainment.