A number of bands have pulled out from the Victorious music pageant simply hours earlier than their scheduled performances, following claims by Irish people group The Mary Wallopers that they have been “cut off” for displaying a Palestinian flag.
The Final Dinner Celebration, Cliffords, and The Tutorial introduced on Saturday that they might now not be performing on the annual music pageant in Portsmouth following Friday’s incident.
The organisers, who stated the band’s set was minimize quick for utilizing a “discriminatory” chant, have since apologised and promised to make “a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people”.
Rock band The Final Dinner Celebration stated they’re “outraged” by the incident and would boycott the pageant.
“We are outraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious. As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today,” they stated in a press release shared on their Instagram web page.
“As Gazans are intentionally plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence, it’s pressing and apparent that artists use their platform to attract consideration to the trigger.
“To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.”
Picture:Abigail Morris, Emily Roberts, Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland and Aurora Nishevci of The Final Dinner Celebration. File pic: Reuters
The Final Dinner Celebration stated that all through the summer season, they’ve used their performances to encourage their audiences to make donations to a medical charity supporting Palestinians and urged their followers “more than ever to do the same”.
The band stated they’re “devastated to be put in this position” and apologised to those that have been hoping to see them carry out.
“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 Mary Wallopers claimed the pageant had launched 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”.
The band stated their 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’,” the band added.
Rock band The Tutorial have additionally pulled out of the pageant, saying they might not “in good conscience” carry out at “a festival that silences free speech”, whereas Irish band Cliffords stated they “refuse to play if we are to be censored for showing our support to the people of Palestine”.
After the bands’ bulletins that they have been pulling out of the pageant, the organisers launched one other assertion, saying that they didn’t deal with “the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached”, and issued an apology.
