Radar Festival fail to find new headliner after dropping Bob Vylan
Manchester’s Radar Festival did not find a headliner for the Saturday night of their festival as they failed to replace Bob Vylan, who were dropped after their recent Glastonbury Festival caused a storm of controversy.
Radar Festival is a celebration of alternative music held at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester between July 4th and July 6th. Punk duo Bob Vylan were set to headline on July 5th, before their Glastonbury Festival performance caused unprecedented controversy in the industry.
On June 28th, Bob Vylan played an afternoon slot at Glastonbury. They led the crowd through a chant of “Death to the IDF,” referencing the Israel Defence Forces. They also chanted “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea.” In reaction, Radar Festival was “forced” to drop the band, though organiser Catherine Jackson-Smith has insisted elsewhere that she “wanted Bob Vylan to perform at our festival.”
In response, several bands pulled out of the festival in solidarity with Bob Vylan, leaving some gaps in the line-up only dozens of hours before kick-off. The Scratch pulled out, declaring, “Shadowy government influence and wealthy lobbying groups should not be allowed [to] dictate who is given a platform and what can be said on it.” Brighton-based all-female punk band ĠENN also removed themselves from the line-up.
Jackson-Smith discussed publicly their attempt to find a new headliner in such a short time. She admitted they considered Kneecap for a secret set, as they have also caused extreme controversy after using their platform for pro-Palestine sentiments, leading the crowd in a chant of “fuck Keir Starmer” at all of their recent sets.
However, the festival could not find a new band to take the headline slot on such short notice. Their website still reads “Headliner TBA” in that all-important slot, and their social media appears to depict the final support, Normandie, running a slightly longer slot.
Though Bob Vylan were not spotted in Manchester, they were allowed to play elsewhere. In the evening before their original headline slot, Bob Vylan made their debut in Greece to open for The Prodigy in Athens. They led the audience through another, “Free Free Palestine,” chant. “Everything I seem to say these days gets us in trouble,” adding that they are most famously known as “those troublemakers from that other festival.”
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