{"id":104990,"date":"2025-08-23T20:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T20:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/104990\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T20:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T20:03:09","slug":"last-dinner-party-boycott-victorious-fest-over-political-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/104990\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Dinner Party Boycott Victorious Fest Over ‘Political Censorship’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Last Dinner Party<\/a> have pulled out of their set at Victorious Festival in Portsmouth, England today (Aug. 23), in solidarity with the Mary Wallopers, whose set was cut short on Friday after the Irish band showed their support for Palestine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are outraged by the decision made to silence the Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious,\u201d The Last Dinner Party posted in a statement on Instagram. \u201cAs a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, the Mary Wallopers were performing onstage and after they unfurled a Palestinian flag and called for a \u201cFree Palestine,\u201d their show was cut short. The band posted video from the incident on Instagram, where they appeared to enter the stage with a Palestinian flag and opened with a remark to \u201cFree Palestine.\u201d After they began performing, a Victorious crew member looked to confront the band about the flag, which was draped onstage, and then the crew member removed it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFree, free Palestine,\u201d the band said from the stage, many in the audience could be heard joining in per the video. Immediately afterward, the band\u2019s sound was cut and the crowd responded with boos. The band then brought the flag back out which elicited cheers, and more chants from the audience and band to \u201cfree Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA rep for Victorious Festival did not immediately return Rolling Stone\u2019s request for comment. A festival spokesperson told the BBC<\/a> the show was ended after the band used \u201ca chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context,\u201d but did not provide specifics. In the Mary Wallopers\u2019 video post, they rejected the festival\u2019s claim and asked that the fest \u201cretract their statement immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe festival have released a misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant and not the band\u2019s call to Free Palestine,\u201d the band wrote. \u201cOur video clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of \u2018Free Palestine.\u2019 The same crew member is later heard in the video saying, \u2018you aren\u2019t playing until the flag is removed.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tIn the Last Dinner Party\u2019s post on Saturday, they wrote, \u201cAs Gazans are deliberately plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence it is urgent and obvious that artists use their platform to draw attention to the cause. To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.\u201d They also encouraged their fans to donate to medical aid for Palestinians<\/a>, and signed the post with \u201cFree Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout this year\u2019s festival season, artists have been showing their support for Palestinians onstage. At Newport Folk Festival, the Resistance Revival Chorus sang a prayer for Gaza<\/a> and actor-comedian John C. Reilly waved a Palestinian flag<\/a> from the main stage. At Coachella<\/a> earlier this year, Kneecap\u2019s pro-Palestine messaging was\u00a0cut from the festival\u2019s livestream<\/a>\u00a0on the first weekend and\u00a0sparked controversy<\/a>\u00a0on the second weekend. Kneecap member Mo Chara faces terror charges<\/a> in the U.K. over a claim he allegedly displayed a Hezbollah flag onstage during a London concert in November 2024. Mo Chara and the band have\u00a0repeatedly denied the allegations<\/a>,\u00a0stating previously<\/a>\u00a0that they \u201cdo not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Last Dinner Party have pulled out of their set at Victorious Festival in Portsmouth, England today (Aug.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,5618,803,2485,7854,69741],"class_list":{"0":"post-104990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-palestine","12":"tag-palestinians","13":"tag-the-last-dinner-party"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}