Christopher BarrettFollowing controversy surrounding Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap’s performance at Coachella, which led to them parting ways with their US agents, the band has now been dropped from festivals including Eden Sessions.
Along with the cancelled performance at Cornwall’s Eden Sessions, promoted by AEG Presents on 4 July, FKP Scorpio has withdrawn the band from the lineup at its German festivals Hurricane and Southside this summer.
The inclusion of the band on Glastonbury’s lineup has been questioned. Security minister Dan Jarvis said, “It is not for government ministers to say who is going to appear at Glastonbury, it’s for the organisers of the festival.
“But there is, as I have said, and ongoing live police investigation, so the government would urge the organisers at the Glastonbury Festival to think very carefully about who is invited to perform there later this year.”
Other forthcoming Kneecap dates include scheduled performances at Wide Awake Festival in London on 23 May, Green Man Festival in Wales in August, and support slots with Fontaines DC at sold-out shows including London’s Finsbury Park.
The furore around the group built after the band ended their Coachella set with pro-Palestinian messages. They have since parted ways with their US agency International Artists Group, and as a result their US work visas were no longer valid. The band are due to tour the US in October.
The controversy has built further with the discovery of footage from a Kneecap concert, believed to be in 2023, during which a band member allegedly said “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your MP.” Another video, understood to be shot at a London gig in 2024, allegedly shows a Kneecap bandmember saying, “Up Hamas, Up Hezbollah.”
In a statement on Instagram, the band said, “Let us be unequivocal, we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah” and “We also reject any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual.” The band claimed the footage had been deliberately taken out of context and is now being “exploited and weaponised.”