Kneecap, review: Provocateurs goad everyone from Israelis to Badenoch as they mock terror charge

Telegraph

24-05-2025

There are two reasons why the Wide Awake festival in south London's verdant Brockwell Park almost didn't happen – and the most mundane involves an Oscar-winning actor and a High Court judgement. Local campaigners backed by Academy Award-winner Sir Mark Rylance argued that the festival was damaging the much-loved park, and last week a judge ruled that local Lambeth Council didn't have the correct planning permission. However new paperwork was speedily submitted and the festival was allowed to proceed.
The other reason was headliner Kneecap, the Irish language hip hop group whose member Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, who goes by the stage name Mo Chara, was this week 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, who denies the offence, will appear in Westminster Magistrates' Court on June 18.
The charge marked the pinnacle of mounting controversy over the west Belfast group. The Republican rappers hit the headlines in April after they displayed a message at California's Coachella accusing Israel of 'committing genocide against the Palestinian people'. When distressing footage later emerged of a band member apparently urging people to kill their local MP – drawing criticism from the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess – the group became bona fide media folk devils, with even the Sex Pistols' snarling former frontman John Lydon saying the trio need 'a bloody good kneecapping', referring to Republican paramilitaries' favoured method of vigilante justice after which they're named. The band later apologised.
All of which made this concert in front of 20,000 people – the biggest show of Kneecap's career and their first gig since Coachella, barring a small warm-up show on Thursday – freighted with anticipation. As they took to the stage to video clips of negative news stories about themselves (including shadow home secretary Chris Philp condemning the 'despicable evil' of their comments about MPs), it was immediately clear that Kneecap were uncowed.
Although there was no repetition of earlier alleged comments or actions, Chara and his bandmates Naoise Ó Cairealláin (stage name Móglaí Bap) and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (DJ Próvaí, a former teacher who wears a balaclava in the colours of the Irish tricolour) presided over a 90-minute carnival of mayhem, defiance and controversy. 'You've no idea how close we were to being pulled off this gig,' said Chara before suggesting that 'it wasn't even me!' Gallows humour about his upcoming court case featured heavily. 'Do any of you know any good lawyers?' he said at one point.
The Coachella banner about Israel committing genocide was briefly displayed again on the screen behind them. The next slide read: 'It is being enabled by the British Government.' Chants of 'Free Palestine' rang out among a multi-generational audience peppered with Palestinian flags. A healthy number of fans were wearing tricolour balaclavas, which the band sell as merchandise. Festival lasers and Republican-style headgear co-mingling at a Coldplay-sized mega-concert in London. Who would have thought it? The controversies only seem to have fired up Kneecap's supporters.
Much of the rapping was in Irish, as one of Kneecap's aims is to reclaim their Irish culture. The lolloping funk of Better Way to Live, a duet with Fontaines D.C.'s Grian Chatten (not present), was an early highlight while Your Sniffer Dogs Are S---e and Fenian C---s provided the most improbable mass sing-alongs I think I've ever heard. The band also debuted a new song, The Recap, which seemed to mock Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch's attempt last year to block arts funding to the band.
Chara claimed the reason he's been given a court date of June 18 is so that Kneecap won't be able to perform at Glastonbury a week later. 'They're trying to silence us from speaking on-stage at Glastonbury the way we did at Coachella,' he claimed, they being the establishment. 'F--- them.' He then urged fans to turn up at his court date with a 'big bag of ket' (the drug, ketamine).
I can't defend Kneecap. There's reclaiming your culture and there's saying stupid things, and in trying to do the former they've done a lot of the latter. The Wide Awake festival suffered too: ticket sales 'flatlined' over the past two weeks due to all the uncertainty, organisers said. But the energy at this concert was genuinely phenomenal, particularly on pulsating old tracks C.E.A.R.T.A and Get Your Brits Out. An Irish friend believes Kneecap's attempt to spread the Irish language around the world represents an exciting and positive force for change. 'It's the new Riverdance. Punk version,' he says. On the strength of this concert, I agree. It didn't really matter what was happening outside the park. Inside there were no divisions – it was one big party.