English Teacher show support for Kneecap at Wide Awake Festival
Alternative rock outfit English Teacher showed their support for Kneecap during their set at Wide Awake Festival in London’s Brockwell Park.
The Mercury Prize winners were on the same bill as Irish trio Kneecap, who have recently been at the heart of controversy as member Mo Chara was charged with a terror offence for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag on stage last November.
Singer-songwriter Lily Fontaine began her speech by describing her thoughts on the ongoing conflict in Palestine. She said, “War as a concept will not die, because we are human beings, and man can’t help itself. But this particular conflict will end, and when it does, like all of us, there will be those who took the side of the oppressor and those who took the side of the oppressed.”
She then referred to Kneecap, who were set to perform the headline slot later that evening: “We are proud to share the stage with people who stand up against oppression.”
She continued, “Art and protest have a long, beautiful history, not only because it allows us to communicate the realities of oppression, but it also allows us to imagine and to make tangible what is not.”
Like politician Jeremy Corbyn, who also made a short address at the festival and called out the current government, Fontaine focused her words on the elite. “The people at the top, they don’t care about us,” she declared. “They care about themselves, so we have to defend each other and we have to listen to each other. Free Palestine.”
Kneecap’s set in the evening saw the band address the current controversy, claiming: “We are being made an example of, the Israeli lobbyists are trying to prove to other artists ‘that if you speak out, we’re going to hit you where it hurts most.'”
Far Out magazine gave English Teacher’s debut album This Could Be Texas five stars, stating: “A breath of fresh air in modern guitar music, refusing to be constrained by any genre, This Could Be Texas is proof that English Teacher have already mastered their craft just one album in. It’s otherworldly and restless, poignant and poetic, entirely English Teacher, and it will be a tough act to follow.”
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