Kneecap defiant at first main gig since terror cost

Kneecap followers turned out in pressure on Friday to assist the Irish-language hip-hop trio at their greatest ever competition headline gig, which got here simply days after a band member was charged with a terror offence.

Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh was charged by the Metropolitan Police for having allegedly displayed a flag in assist of proscribed Lebanese organisation Hezbollah at a gig final 12 months.

The band denied the offence, calling it “political policing” and “a carnival of distraction” away from Gaza.

Speaking on stage on the Wide Awake competition, the rapper – as a consequence of seem in courtroom subsequent month – mentioned the authorites have been “making an attempt to silence us earlier than Glastonbury” and urged followers to be “on the precise aspect of historical past.”

“I do know we’re out, we’re having fun with ourselves and we’re making an attempt to take heed to some tunes at a competition… imagine me lads, I want I did not have to do that,” he mentioned on the south London occasion.

“But the world’s not listening. The world must see solidarity of 20,000 individuals in a park in London chanting, ‘free free Palestine!'”

The chant echoed out round Brixton’s Brockwell park.

The UN mentioned on Friday that Gaza was in the “cruellest phase” of war, with 9,000 vehicles’ price of assist prepared on the border for the Palestinian territory.

“Let’s keep in mind how fortunate we’re to be in a subject with our buddies and never being bombed from the sky,” Kneecap’s frontman, who goes by the stage title Mo Chara, informed the viewers on Friday evening.

Israel launched a navy marketing campaign in Gaza in response to the Palestinian group Hamas’s cross-border assault on 7 October 2023, during which about 1,200 individuals have been killed and 251 others have been taken hostage.

At least 53,762 individuals, together with 16,500 youngsters, have been killed in Gaza since then, in keeping with the territory’s Hamas-run well being ministry.

Friday’s live performance – Kneecap’s first large gig because the investigation was launched – adopted a smaller “secret” set at London’s 100 membership the evening earlier than.

It noticed the band – comprised of Chara, Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Cairealláin) and balaclava-wearing beatmaker DJ Próvaí (JJ Ó Dochartaigh) – rip by tracks from their acclaimed album Fine Art, which has seen a surge in streaming in current weeks because the controversy started.

This included a model new monitor known as The Recap which dropped on-line solely hours earlier, and begins with a clip of a information report in regards to the counter-terrorism investigation.

Fans, lots of whom have been carrying Irish and Palestinian flags and shirts, bounced and sang alongside to their tracks which discover them rapping in English and Irish about every thing from drug-fuelled events to Northern Ireland and Gaza.

One fan, Myrtle from Brighton, informed BBC News she agreed with the band’s views on Gaza.

“I believe it is superb. I believe they’re fully proper,” she mentioned.

“Imagine in a number of years if we get to a state the place it is [even worse] and you’ll’t say that you have been on the precise aspect of historical past and you have not made an effort to make that change, how do you not really feel responsible?”

She added: “Obviously it is led to one among them being charged with a terror offence which is terrible, but it surely’s introduced extra consideration to the politics behind it.”

The gig culminated in rousing renditions of Kneecap songs Get Your Brits out and H.O.O.D, with the band encouraging followers to bellow out the Irish Republican slogan “Tiocfaidh ár lá“, which interprets as “our day will come”.

Brixton resident John informed us outdoors the gig: “At greatest they’re naive, at worst they’re apologists for violence.”

“Do they actually know what Ireland was like earlier than the Good Friday Agreement?” he requested.

A fan who lives in Orkney, Gwen, informed us she had first come throughout Kneecap “accidentally” when her sister informed her in regards to the band’s now Bafta-winning movie.

She lived in a kibbutz in Israel when she was youthful. “I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Israel, and I’ve had a stunning expertise with Israeli individuals, and I’ve met Palestinian individuals in Israel,” she defined.

“And the principle factor that resonated with me once I was in Israel was that most individuals on the bottom simply sort of need peace. They don’t love residing with the fixed worry of terror.”

She mentioned she “beloved Kneecap much more” after they “began placing their mild on Gaza”.

Speaking on the Ivor Novello awards a day earlier, the composer of Kneecap’s semi-autobiographical biopic, Michael “Mikey J” Asante, informed the BBC’s Mark Savage: “I have not actually spoken to them, it is all fairly new – however greater than anything there’s the notion of freedom of expression.

“It will all work out the way it must. So you allow the individuals who have the knowledge to make the precise choices.”

Ó hAnnaidh appeared unconcerned in regards to the regulation on the evening, joking with followers that they must write to him in jail whereas asking them to get their “grannies to mild a wee candle for me”.

To their many followers, Kneecap are relatable, hedonistic provocateurs, mixing rapid-fire anti-establishment lyrics that intention to offer a voice to the oppressed with danceable bass-heavy beats.

To their critics they’re harmful upstarts who’ve now gone too far.

During an incendiary efficiency on the Coachella music competition in California final month, they described Israel’s navy motion in Gaza as a US-funded genocide. As a outcome, they’ve been known as antisemitic and “terrorist sympathisers”.

Then within the UK, historic footage from two of their gigs was assessed by counter-terrorism police. One appeared to indicate a band member shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” – each teams are banned within the UK and it’s a crime to specific assist for them – whereas one other video allegedly confirmed them calling for Conservative MPs to be killed.

Kneecap apologised to the families of murdered MPs Sir David Amess and Jo Cox however claimed footage of the incident had been taken out of context and “exploited and weaponised”, including they’d have “by no means supported” Hamas or Hezbollah.

They repeated the declare they have been “being made an instance of” on stage on Friday.

Organisers of Friday’s Brixton occasion confirmed in a press release earlier this month that Friday’s gig would go forward after they held “optimistic discussions with key stakeholders”.

“Wide Awake Festival has a proud historical past of supporting the choice music scene and we stay up for staging one other unforgettable occasion showcasing the perfect rising and established expertise,” they mentioned.

But different Kneecap gigs have been cancelled within the wake of the controversy, together with their units on the Eden Project in Cornwall and Plymouth Pavilions.

Police Scotland have mentioned that permitting them to carry out on the TRNSMT music competition in Glasgow subsequent month would require “a big policing operation”.

Some politicians together with Tory chief Kemi Badenoch have known as for Kneecap to be banned and Commons Leader Lucy Powell has mentioned the group shouldn’t be allowed to carry out at Glastonbury subsequent month, the place they’re listed for the Saturday.

Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh is because of seem in courtroom every week earlier than the competition begins.

Artists together with CMAT, Massive Attack and Primal Scream in addition to Paul Weller and DJ Annie Mac have all publicly defended Kneecap, saying the powers-that-be are “strategically concocting ethical outrage over the stage utterings of a younger punk band” whereas ignoring the state of affairs in Gaza.