Nick Cave backs performers attending The Great Escape amid boycotts
Nick Cave has chimed into the controversy surrounding this year’s The Great Escape festival. As numerous artists pull out, and hundreds more have criticised the festival’s sponsorship deals with Barclays, a bank that has ties to companies that supply arms to Israeli forces in Gaza, Cave has shared a simple piece of advice.
As part of his weekly Red Hand Files, fans write in questions for Cave to answer in his own words and candid style. The newsletter has always covered a vast array of subjects, from art and grief to current events or cultural reactions, but this week, it turned political. Under the name, ‘The Artist Is Present’, a musician on the lineup for the festival wrote to Cave for his advice.
“I am a musician who has been booked to play The Great Escape festival, which, as you may have heard, a number of artists are boycotting due to the sponsorship of Barclays. Who, in a non-linear fashion, are profiting from the horror that is occurring in Palestine,” they write. However, the conflict comes when considering the potential art can have in helping the world or the ways in which showcase festivals such as the one in Brighton can help new artists who need the platform.
They continued, “I do not support the genocide, I would hope the rest of the world feels the same. But as an artist already existing in a very toxic industry, the best many of us can hope for is a few scraps – the glimmer of an opportunity, a gig, anything to help us get our music out into the world, and in turn make it a better place with the love we promote in our art. The music industry is a place of being told you need to follow TikTok trends and that labels only look at ‘metrics’. Individuality doesn’t feel celebrated.”
They sum up their conflictions neatly as they conclude, “Integrity is all we have, so how are we expected to navigate through this world when all commercialism and corporate sponsorship comes from darkness? Latitude, Isle of White, Reading & Leeds are all sponsored by Barclays – it’s a huge expectation on struggling musicians who will be replaced by one of a thousand other hungry musicians if they decide to boycott. What would you do?”
To answer the extended question and the mammoth debate about the role politics plays in art, Nick Cave replied simply, “Play.”
Nick Cave’s standpoint on the ongoing Israel and Gaza conflict has felt somewhat conflicting. He’s previously stated in his newsletter that he won’t be watching Eurovision this year but didn’t agree that Israel should be banned from entering, despite the argument that Russia was banned in response to their conflict with Ukraine.
However, his complex politics when it comes to Israel goes back further than that. In 2017, the Bad Seeds played in Isreal during a boycott on the state from musicians. “I do not support the current government in Israel yet do not accept that my decision to play in the country is any kind of tacit support for that government’s policies,” he said about the decision, adding in a press conference, “It suddenly became very important to me to make a stand against those people that are trying to shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians and to silence musicians.”
As he encourages musicians to take to the stage at the Brighton festival later this month, his political stance remains, but his dedication to musicians doing their job endures.
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