The Murder Capital expressed their support for The Mary Wallopers during their All Points East festival set.
The Irish band played at London’s All Points East Festival in Victoria Park today (Sunday August 24), and asked the crowd to show their support for The Mary Wallopers, who had their sound cut by Portsmouth’s Victorious festival organisers and the Palestinian flag they had on stage taken away.
The Mary Wallopers were halfway through the opening song of their set at the Portsmouth festival when the sound was cut, and the organisers’ decision was met with furious responses from both the band themselves and many of the other artists on the bill.
Acts including The Last Dinner Party, The Academic, Cliffords and Esme Emerson decided to boycott the festival as a result.
After The Mary Wallopers’ set was cut off, Victorious representatives told NME that the show was not ended because of the presence of the flag on stage, but because “the band used a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context”.
In response, the band shared an unedited video of the events from the stage, and said: “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.”
Now, the Murder Capital have spoken about the incident. “Make some noise for The Mary Wollopers,” the band’s frontman says to the crowd. “I want you to make some fucking noise for the bands that pulled out of that shitty festival. I want to hear some fucking noise for the people of Palestine.”
The crowd starts chanting “Free Palestine” after he finishes. Watch footage of the moment below.
On Saturday night (August 23), Vampire Weekend topped the Victorious festival bill and, after their opening song ‘Mansard Roof’, frontman Ezra Koenig addressed the controversy. Explaining that the band had been travelling and did not have all of the information, he said it would be “wrong” if any artists had been prevented from sharing a political view.
“If someone was punished for flying a flag, that is wrong and they deserve an apology,” he said. “The terrible suffering of the Palestinian people deserves all of our sympathy.”
As reported by Portsmouth News, Koenig’s comments were met with huge cheers and applause from the crowd.
In other news, The Murder Capital have been forced to cancel the US and Canadian leg of their tour due to “unforeseen financial challenges” and uncertainty.
They were set to embark on a North American leg of the tour later this autumn, however, in a new update with fans, the five-piece have explained that they have had to scrap all of those dates.
This, they explained, was due to financial struggles and uncertainties around travel. It seems like no replacement dates have been scheduled, and fans who have tickets to the shows should be issued refunds shortly.
“With heavy hearts, we have to cancel our tour this autumn due to unforeseen financial challenges and the ongoing travel uncertainties,” their statement read on social media yesterday (July 1). “This is a bitter pill to swallow. We hope you know how much we wanted to be out there playing these shows for ye all.”
They continued: “Thank you to all our fans that bought tickets, we appreciate your support and can’t wait to come back as soon as the time is right. Sending you all love in these strange times. All our summer shows are on, we look forward to seeing everyone out there.”