Latest news with #GuiltyConscience
Daily Mirror
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis breaks silence on Kneecap controversy
Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said he didn't think it was 'appropriate' for Irish band Kneecap to perform at Glastonbury after their pro-Palestine comments at Coachella Glastonbury boss Emily Eavis has broken her silence surrounding controversial Irish band Kneecap. The group from Belfast hit the headlines after making pro-Palestine comments at Coachella in April after band member, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, was charged with a terror offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a London gig in November. Though Liam has been released on bail, Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said it was "not appropriate" for the Guilty Conscience stars to perform at Glastonbury on the West Holts Stage at 4pm on Saturday. However, giving her opinion on the divisive band, Emily, said "everyone is welcome". Talking to the BBC as the festival flung open its doors to thousands of revellers today, she was asked: "You are very used to people picking over every aspect of the lineup but the Prime Minister got involved this time, saying it wasn't appropriate for Kneecap to be playing, how have you responded to that?" Emily replied: "We haven't responded to that. At the moment we're just focusing on bringing the best festival to the people who want to come here. We're incredibly lucky that so many people want to come to Glastonbury, we have millions of people who want to come." However, she was then probed: "But it's quite a thing for the Prime Minister to comment, how did you react? How did you feel?" Looking somewhat irritated, Emily said: "I know, it is, there have been a lot of really heated topics this year, but we remain a platform for many, many artists from all over the world and, you know, everyone is welcome here." Kneecap replied to the Prime Minister's comments about them on social media, fuming: 'You know what's 'not appropriate' Keir?! Arming a f*****g genocide… solidarity with [Palestinian Action]." Meanwhile, Trainspotting novelist, Irvine Welsh, also slammed the PM, branding his view on Kneecap a "total embarrassment". In a new essay published by The Face, Irvine wrote of the band's Palestine support: "Three young musicians from Derry and West Belfast are bringing this to our attention. "And when all the British state can do in response is persecute a band for this – to try to stop them from playing music and from touring internationally with these ridiculous, nonsensical charges – it really is just an embarrassment to us all. '"A total embarrassment. It makes you feel embarrassed to be breathing the same air as the people who try to do this, who try to silence these voices." Kneecap bandmate, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with unfurling a flag in public hinting he could be supporting Hezbollah, a group listed as prohibited. However, Kneecap slammed the case against their bandmate as a 'witch hunt' in a fiery post on X. In striking images, a billboard was put up outside Westminster Magistrate's Court earlier this month, which read: "More blacks, more dogs, more Irish, Mo Chara [Liam's stage name". The Kneecap star has been released on bail as the terror charge case has been adjourned until August 20.
Scotsman
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Tate McRae, Glasgow review: 'all the right poses'
This was undoubtedly a slick performance from Tate McRae, but something was missing, writes Fiona Shepherd Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Tate McRae, Hydro, Glasgow ★★★ The audience decibel level was high in the Hydro for Canadian pop star Tate McRae, the 21-year-old singer/songwriter/dancer making a play as the next Dua Lipa with music which makes all the right noises, a performance which struck all the right poses and a stage set with all the right moving parts. What was missing through all the hair tossing and pouty attitude was any great sense of warmth or sincerity in her delivery and any originality or personality in her turbo-charged electro pop. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But for her target market of teenage girls, screaming in recognition to every song at what could well be their first arena concert experience, this Miss Possessive Tour was a year zero epiphany. The entire set-up was austere, with McRae and her eight dancers strutting in mechanically sexy mode on hydraulic platforms illuminated by banks of simple but dramatic spot lighting. At least her live drummer and guitarist provided some propulsive clatter and costume change-covering shredding. McRae is a better dancer than singer. Her vocals were shrouded in effects but there was nowhere to hide with the moves and she hit her mark on every occasion, whether wielding a walking cane in a wind tunnel or staying cool while all around her descended into a writhing group lapdance. Much of the early part of her show comprised sultry electro R&B, with Guilty Conscience standing out as the strongest pop hook. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Tate McRae PIC:
New Statesman
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The nastiness and cowardice of Kneecap
Photo by Conor Kinahan/SOPA Images Mo Chara – 'my friend' in Irish – is the stage name of one third of Kneecap, the bilingual hip-hop trio from West Belfast. I might suggest he hasn't done enough to earn such a moniker. 'Then all you c***s are getting one behind the ear,' he raps, rather un-amiably. ''Nois, cúpla ceist [now, a few questions], do ya want it in your chest?/Or your knees? Or your head?' they ask on their biggest track 'H.O.O.D'. 'Get the noose!' Mo Chara implores his bandmate on their hit 2024 song 'Guilty Conscience'. Who could have guessed the band behind such blood-soaked lyrics might be nasty? Who might suspect a group named after the republican paramilitary tactic of shooting allies and enemies through their kneecaps? The one whose members include DJ Próvai – a rhetorical play on a member of the provisional IRA – who wears an Irish tricolour balaclava on stage (you can buy an imitation on their website for £27). If there was any doubt – the group's first single was released in 2017, and they were the subjects of a celebrated eponymous feature film in 2024 – there is little now. On 27 April it was reported that two videos of the band are being assessed by counter-terrorism police: the first is of a November 2023 gig in which one of its members seems to yell: 'The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.' The second, from late 2024, appears to show a band member shouting: 'Up Hamas! Up Hezbollah!' while draped in a Hezbollah flag (the band recently closed their set at the California music festival Coachella with a sign reading 'F*** ISRAEL, FREE PALESTINE). They chant 'Maggie's in a box', in reference to the late Margaret Thatcher. Whatever you make of the politics, you have to pity the lack of decorum. This has all earned Kneecap no uncertain trouble. Kemi Badenoch has said that the group should be prosecuted. Downing Street called the comments about murdering MPs 'completely unacceptable'. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the band urgently needed to clarify whether they were pro-Hamas. One Labour MP has called for their upcoming Glastonbury set to be cancelled. Every punk has their price. And for the self-styled, anti-establishment republican renegades of Kneecap, the prospect of a cancelled Glastonbury appearance and the legal ramifications of supporting proscribed terrorist organisations seems to be theirs. Kneecap have apologised for the comments to the families of the murdered MPs David Amess and Jo Cox. In the same statement they said: 'Let us be unequivocal: we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah' (which certainly makes their 'Up Hamas! Up Hezbollah!' intervention confusing). The group complained its comments were taken out of context to derail the conversation from the 'ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people'. 'Guilty conscience? No thanks!' Kneecap boasts on 'Guilty Conscience'. Yet for all the radical posturing, casual reference to rebel IRA slogans, balaclava'd members, and rhetorical violence, it seems the band is indeed in possession of a conscience. But it is one that begins and ends with commercial viability. When faced with consequences, the consummate Irish punks became rather obsequious indeed. We might wonder whether the one thing worse than saying terrible things is saying terrible things and not even meaning them in the first place. Call it hollow, cynical, dangerous – whatever. This is nastiness without the saving grace of conviction. In recent years there has been a spate of the young Irish embracing old, hardened republican rhetoric: 'up the 'Ra [IRA]' has re-emerged as a popular refrain at music festivals; 'tiocfaidh ár lá'('our day will come' – a rebel slogan) has been defanged in the culture, thrown away as a conversational joke. Distance from the realities of the Troubles has blunted its edges. And there has long been a link between this disposition and the pro-Palestine movement: one Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD, or member of parliament) said in 2021 that the Irish 'sympathise [with] and understand' the Palestinian plight, 'as the northern part of our country experienced similar for many years'. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Kneecap's popularity emerges entirely from this cartoonish version of history, where the violence of the latter half of the 20th century is a kind of distant and aesthetically admirable mythology; where it can all be dismissed as brusque humour. The whole thing is a joke, Kneecap is now arguing. Up Hamas? We didn't mean it like that! Kill your MP? Only if we still get to play our Glastonbury set… I wonder whether the 1916 rebels would have managed to take over the General Post Office were they also to capitulate at the first sign of getting into trouble. Whatever you might want to call the band, 'punk' is no longer a fitting attribute. I am reminded of another Irish rebel singer, Sinéad O'Connor. In 1992 she took a sledgehammer to her career on Saturday Night Live: at the end of a performance of Bob Marley's 'War' O'Connor, then 25, tore up an image of Pope John Paul II and glared down the camera. 'Fight the real enemy,' she said. O'Connor was accused of blasphemy; she was promptly banned for life by the broadcaster NBC; copies of her records were destroyed at protests in Times Square. And the woman once considered the biggest rising star of the decade reversed her trajectory on the spot. But she didn't back down. And none of it ever was dismissed as a big joke to save her career. Devotion to bad politics is one thing; Kneecap's impulses are nastier – and their lack of conviction is worse. Related
