Manchester’s Radar Festival says it was “forced” to cancel Bob Vylan’s set
Manchester’s Radar Festival has revealed that they did not want to cancel Bob Vylan‘s festival appearance but were forced to after their controversial Glastonbury appearance.
The punk duo performed on the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury on June 28th, and led the crowd through a chant of “Death to the IDF”, referencing the Israel Defence Forces. Bob Vylan also chanted “Free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea”.
Immediately, the band faced criticism from the BBC, which wrote that “the antisemitic sentiments expressed by Bob Vylan were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves.” Glastonbury immediately distanced itself from the duo in a swift social media statement that painted them as “appalled.”
Bob Vylan’s next stop after Glastonbury was Radar Festival. It will take place at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester between July 4th and July 6th, with a new headliner set to be announced in due course for July 5th. Speaking on the Two Promoters One Pod podcast, organiser Catherine Jackson-Smith has now revealed that the festival did not want to remove Bob Vylan from the line-up.
The Radar Festival venue is half independent and half privately owned by AMG and Live Nation. Jackson-Smith commented on the show that soon after the Glastonbury performance aired, “It started to become frustrating because there were constant conversations above our collective heads, as a venue and ourselves, about whether Bob Vylan could play.” Jackson-Smith noted she asked to be part of the conversations, finding it confusing that they weren’t involving the organisers in the festival if there were “public order” issues.
The choice was “put very bluntly” to Jackson-Smith: “We could continue with Bob Vylan as our headliner. If we continued, we wouldn’t have the festival happening on Saturday.” The 41 other bands travelling on Saturday would have been in jeopardy, and cancelling the Saturday would have plunged the festival into a precarious situation.
Soon, the team lead realised that “There was not an option for Bob Vylan to step on stage on Saturday; that became apparent at the beginning of the week.” Consequently, Jackson-Smith had to speak to Bob Vylan, even though the decision was not her own. She described it as “categorically, one of the most horrendous professional discussions I have ever had. I cannot express clearly enough that I wanted Bob Vylan to perform at our festival.”
She expanded on the conversation; their agency no longer represents Bob Vylan after dropping them in light of the controversy, so they passed on their details over to Jackson-Smith. “It was horrific as a conversation,” she repeated, stressing, however, that “Bob Vylan knew that we didn’t want to pull them.”
She continued, “The headlines will be ‘Radar Festival pulled Bob Vylan.’ There isn’t room journalistically for the nuance of what is happening to be put into a headline that will go out anywhere, so it won’t. It gives the impression that—not that we are part of the establishment, but I can’t think of a more eloquent way of putting it. That we have joined the course for XYZ consequence, and we haven’t.”
Jackson-Smith also revealed that they were told how to announce Bob Vylan’s cancellation; they were only allowed to write a short, snappy statement on social media. This meant they were in the firing line for disgruntled fans calling them “cowards” and so forth. The real story was hidden from the general public.
In response to the backlash, Bob Vylan said: “We are being targeted for speaking up. We are not the first. We will not be the last. And if you care for the sanctity of human life and freedom of speech, we urge you to speak up, too.”
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