Bob Vylan may have been dropped from every festival line-up in Europe and had their US tour cancelled, but they’re still putting on gigs at smaller venues, including a surprise show at the 100 Club in London last night.
Naturally, some in the crowd tried to get a ‘Death to the IDF’ chant going, but frontman Bobby Vylan was quick to shut them down:
Looks like they’ll be keeping to ‘Free Palestine’ from now on, since that doesn’t technically qualify as hate speech/death threats. Well, at least not yet anyway. I’m sure there are groups out there who would love to change that. But for now, Bob Vylan and their fans are free to chant it to their heart’s content. Just not while being broadcast live on the BBC or anywhere else, for that matter.
The band, along with Kneecap, are still being investigated by the police over their Glastonbury set, so obviously it wouldn’t be a great idea to get the ‘Death to the IDF’ chant going again. Just from a legal perspective.
During the gig in London, Bobby Vylan added: ‘We never ever could have imagined that we would create a conversation that needed to be created and needed to be had.’
He added: “What is happening over there is an absolute mess, it is f****** criminal what is happening to these people, they are now being concentrated into camps.’
‘They have been trying to silence us, they thought that this would shut us up, but the album is back in the charts.
“We just want to see the liberation of the Palestinian people. That’s it. I don’t think it’s too crazy a thing to ask. I don’t think it’s a violent thing to ask, right? The liberation of the Palestinian people from a tyrannical f****** oppressor. That’s all we want. Each and every single time, they will not f****** silence us.”
Indeed- the band’s 2024 album Humble as The Sun is currently at #1 in the UK hip hop & R&B charts (even though Bob Vylan technically is a punk band), at No. 7 on the album downloads chart, and No. 8 on the independent albums chart. Not bad for a ‘cancelled’ musician, but we’ll see how long it lasts now that they can’t get on TV or do big shows.
The duo wrapped up their London gig by holding up the Palestinian flag and saying: “We are a loving band, we love you lot for being here with us. We love the Palestinian people.
“Their strength, their resilience, their ability to keep on going in the face of it all is a beautiful and inspiring thing.
“So as hard as this week may have been for us, it has been nothing in comparison to what the Palestinian people are going through right now. That is where the attention should be.”
For the time Logan Paul expertly trolled the BBC by sending a lookalike to be interviewed by them, click HERE.
