The Last Dinner Party pulled out of Victorious over the fest cutting the Mary Wallopers set following the band's onstage 'Free Palestine' su
Rolling Stone article:
On Friday, the Mary Wallopers were performing onstage and after they unfurled a Palestinian flag and called for a “Free Palestine,” their show was cut short. The band posted video from the incident on Instagram, where they appeared to enter the stage with a Palestinian flag and opened with a remark to “Free Palestine.” After they began performing, a Victorious crew member looked to confront the band about the flag, which was draped onstage, and then the crew member removed it.
“Free, free Palestine,” the band said from the stage, many in the audience could be heard joining in per the video. Immediately afterward, the band’s sound was cut and the crowd responded with boos. The band then brought the flag back out which elicited cheers, and more chants from the audience and band to “free Palestine.”
According to the BBC article:
A festival spokesperson said the show was ended after the band used "a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context", but did not confirm what that was.In a response on Instagram, the band uploaded a video of the incident, alongside a statement requesting that the festival "retract their statement immediately".
On NME article:
On Friday, Victorious told NME that “although a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist’s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist’s decision to stop the song. The decision by the event management to cut the sound and end the performance was only taken after the band used a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context.”
The Mary Wallopers share this video of what happened at the festival:
They put this caption:
marywallopers: Yesterday, a famine was declared in Gaza, where at least 65 people were killed by Israeli attacks, all the while Israel pushed ahead with plans to split the West Bank in two. These are the important facts about yesterday. We are uploading this video so everybody can see @ victoriousfestival cut our gig short for having a Palestinian flag on stage. The festival have released a misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant and not the band’s call to Free Palestine. Our video clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of “Free Palestine”. The same crew member is later heard in the video saying “you aren’t playing until the flag is removed”. We completely reject Victorious’ portrayal of today’s events and request that they retract their statement immediately. We know this is getting some attention and we don’t want another distraction which takes attention away from the genocide that is happening in Palestine. FREE PALESTINE
After this a few artists, bands had share that they will not perform for the festival. Bands like The Last Dinner Party:
The Academic:
Esme Emerson band:
Cliffords:
After this Victorious Festival share this statement on August 23rd on ig and facebook:
They had this comment on the post:
They also put this on their insta stories on the 23rd of August:
The donation link is this one (same link was share by Cliffords' band).
According to NME:
Victorious is one of many festivals to be operated by Superstruct Entertainment, which is owned by the controversial global investment firm KKR, which has been criticised by many artists for its alleged stakes in weapons manufacturing companies and Israel corporations operating in the occupied Palestinian territories.
You can read more about this in NME's article, it link to more info and other articles related to the topic. The statements in writing of some of the bands are in the article as well if is easier to read it there.
