Already, and this is the daily This is the Daily os Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the Daily Odds. It's Tuesday, the first July. Happy new financial Year. I'm Lucy Tassel.
I'm Sam Cauzluski.
Over the weekend, Britain's biggest music festival, Glastonbury, was held on a farm in southwest England. This year's edition made more headlines than usual due to a pair of acts Irish rap group Kneecap and English punk pair Bob Villain. Kneecap's inclusion on the lineup was already newsworthy due to one of its members facing a terrorism related charge, while Bob Villain sparked a discussion by calling for quote death
to the IDF the Israeli Defense Forces. Mid set in today's show, we'll break down the conversation around the two performances, the government's reaction, and a woman named Helen from.
And Lucy. The first thing to say before we get into this, as I'm sure listeners could already identify, is that there's some pretty strong language in this episode. So that's what it's saying upfront. The other thing, w what it's saying upfront is that as much as we wanted to be, you and I weren't there. We were still here in Sydney, but over the weekend it felt like I was there if I went on my phone. The amount of content that was being uploaded from the festival.
Some heartwarming moments Lewis Capaldi returning to stage two years after his last performance. Yeah, but there was also a lot of footage of the performance by punk duo Bob Villain.
Yeah.
Talk me through what happened to that set.
Well, I'll start by saying that the reason we saw so many clips is because of the BBC, the UK's public broadcaster. That's what our ABC is modeled on. In Australia. We pay for the ABC through our taxes. In the UK, they make a direct payment every year called the TV license and it costs around three hundred and seventy Australian dollars.
And I mention all of this because the DBC broadcasts glastow sets live and they also make them available on their iPlayer later on, which is like the equivalent of iView.
And they're also on YouTube, which is where they're viewed by people all over the world. Yeah, but it's a relatively unique situation to have a lot of a festival being filmed and broadcast live. What is the relationship between the BBC and Glastonbury.
Yeah, it's They're not like an official sponsor or anything, but they have broadcast glasson bresets for decades, originally on
the radio. You said it was relatively unique. I think it's almost unique, But it's sort of like the ABC's relationship with Splendor in the Graphs or what that used to be, where the arm of the public broadcaster is kind of bringing the show to people who can't attend because it's culturally important and significant, and ahead of the festival, we knew which sets the BBC would be broadcasting live
and which would be available later. And that meant that when Bob Villain took the stage this duo, I should say both of their members have the stage name Bobby Villain, so just going to say Bob Villain for each.
Uh.
That meant that when they took the stage to perform on Saturday afternoon local time, they knew that what they said was going to be broadcast live on the public broadcaster.
We're seeing the UK and the US be complicit complicit in war crimes and genocide happening over there to the Palaestinian people. And uh, you know, I know we're on the BBC. We're not going to say anything crazy. You're right, believe that for them lads. But have you heard this one though? Death theft to the I d F, def to the id.
F, deaf to the I d F. So that's lead vocalist Bobby Villain when he says them lads, and that clip he's talking about Kneecap, the Irish group I mentioned whose performance the BBC was not broadcasting.
Okay, so there's a couple of moving parts here before we get into the reaction to the Bob Villain performance and why Kneecap's performance wasn't being broadcast, give me some context on Kneecap. This second group we're talking.
About, Yeah, Soneecap are an Irish rap trio. They're from Northern Ireland, which is one of the four parts of the United Kingdom. It has been since the nineteen twenties. It's separated from the Republic of Ireland. We don't have all week for me to sit here and explain hundreds of years of Irish politics and unrest, but Suffice it to say. The members of NCAP may have been born over the border in the UK, but they are staunchly pro up United Ireland outside of British control, so reintegrating
Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland. For example. You can see their twenty nineteen track get your Brits Out, which is sort of a punny way of saying, get them out of Ireland.
You get your brands, your brands, We're get your brands, and get your brands, your brands, We're.
Get your NIECAP are all so strong advocates for the protection of the Irish language, which the English government has a long history of suppressing. I mean literally nearly seven hundred years since the English Parliament passed a law banning anyone who lived in an English colony in Ireland from speaking the Irish language, among many other cultural suppressions. They have a semi autobiographical film that was released last year. It's on Stan will pop the link in the show
notes if you want to know more about them. But these are the kind of the key things to know about them. They're a pro Irish Republic group, they care very much about the Irish language, and they're a rap group.
And so what was the reason their performance wasn't being broadcast.
Yeah, so one of their three members, mo Tara, has recently been charged with a terrorism related offense for allegedly displaying a hes Bola flag on stage in twenty twenty three. Now, for those who don't know or might need a refresher, Hezbollah is a Lebanese militia. It's backed by Iran, Australia and the UK BO listed as a terrorist organization and it's illegal in the UK to show support for it,
including displaying its flag. Now, Mocha is a waiting further proceedings relating to the twenty twenty three charge, and both he and Neecap have not denied the incident, but they argue their work is rooted in political commentary, satire and artistic expression. In light of the ongoing proceedings, the BBC chose not to broadcast They're set live, though it was later made available to watch on My Player again like.
iView and the main way that we're engaging with clips from that performance is from crowdsourced. Yes right, yes.
So there's a woman called Helen Wilson. She's from Wales and she knew that it wasn't going to be broadcast live, so she live streamed their set from her phone to thousands of people at a time, including at one point I think she said she burnt her finger because her phone was getting so hot. And Kneecap were on after Bob Villain. So we've had this broadcast live set, including this very strong language, and then we've had Kneecap set which is not being broadcast live except by Helen from Wales.
During this set they led a chant of free, Free Palestine. They also led a chant of fuck kir Starmer. So again that's that strong language we were talking about.
We did give a warning.
We gave a warning the UK Prime Minister. He said they shouldn't be allowed to play the festival. And we know that they are very outspoken about Israel's actions in Gaza.
Give me a sense of why that is the case that we have this group, very rooted in Irish politics, culture and identity, being so outspoken about the Israel situation in Gaza.
Yeah, so they have said they want innocent people to stop being killed. I also think a lot of people have become more outspoken in various directions following Hamas's attack on Israel on October seven, twenty twenty three, and then during Israel's ensuing war with Hamas in Gaza that has dis placed most of the population and caused a humanitarian crisis. One of the most recent updates from the region was
from before the festival. That was Israeli media reporting IDF soldiers had been ordered to shoot Palestinian civilians waiting to collect food at the US Israeli run aid distribution sites. I'll be clear that Prime Minister Benjamin Nettnyal who has denied this report, it's against that backdrop that we hear those comments from Bob Villain saying death death to the IDF, which was obviously kind of the biggest story out of
the festival. And I'm talking Aboutneecap right now, But just to recap, like why Bob Villain was particularly making those comments, perhaps and also knowing that he was going to be live streamed and that Kneecap, as I said, weren't going to be live streamed, might have contributed to the strength
of those comments or the intensity of those comments. Then, just to return tonecap I would also point to the fact that the UK government was part of the move to split all then Island off from the rest of Ireland, becoming part of the UK that was part of treaty negotiations,
ending a wave of violence. A kneecap who seek for Ireland to be united might draw comparisons with the way the United Nations contributed to the creation of the state of Israel in the nineteen forties, partitioning it from the UK controlled Palestinian territory. And it's that same word used in both processes, partition, separation. So I think that could be this is just analysis. I think it could be related.
And so you have two groups of performers hitting the stage at one of the biggest festivals in the world using language that are particularly in that example of death to the IDF is an incitement of violence.
Yea.
What has the reaction been on the ground to those two sets?
Yeah, So on the ground at the festival, you can hear in the clips that I've played, the crowds join in the chants, they cheer for the acts. Outside the festival things have been more mixed. The BBC has not uploaded Bob Villains set to iPlayer. In a statement it called the comments quote deeply offensive. Nieecaps is available, though the BBC said it had been edited from the festival organizers. We have this statement. We are appalled by the statements
made by Bob Villain yesterday. Their chance very much crossed the line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for anti Semitism, hate speech or incitement to violence, and local police are investigating to find out if any offenses were carried out. The Israeli Embassy in the UK
put out a statement. They said when such messages are delivered before tens of thousands of festival goers and met with applause, it raises serious concerns about the normalization of extremist language and the glorification of violence.
I'm interested to see if there was any reaction from Kistama, the UK Prime Minister and the government. Neecap led a chant against him. Have we heard from the government.
So he called it appalling hate speech. I should say he was talking about Bob Villain's comments, not Neecaps, but he did say that he had said that Neecaps shouldn't perform. To me, the most interesting comments came from Wes Streeting, so he's in charge of Health. He's effectively the health minister, and he not only responded to Bob Villan's comments, he also responded to the Israeli Embassy's comments. Here's what he said.
If I take the equivalent of the war in Ukraine, I'm unequivocal about which side of that war I'm on. I want Ukraine to win. Would I be celebrating or chanting for the death of Russian soldiers.
No.
I want see an end to the war, and I want to see an end to the conflict. I'd also say to the Israeli embassy, get your own house in order. In terms of the conduct of your own citizens and the settlers in the West Bank, I think there's a serious point there by the Israeli embassy I take seriously. I wish they'd take the violence of their own citizens towards Palestinians more seriously.
So.
Streeting was referring there to Israeli settlers in the West Bank attacking Palestinians aided by IDF soldiers last week. That's according to Palestinian health authorities. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal by the UN under international law.
I think what's interesting about this story is that the story is grounded in a music festival, a very popular music festival, but it's quickly become a story about international politics, international war, international law, and this link between the arts and politics, and they seem almost inseparable, and that they, over history seem to find ways to intersect with each other, even on some of the biggest stages in the world. So, just to reiterate, at the moment, there hasn't been official
charges laid the time of recording. No, okay, thank you Lucy for taking us through that. A complicated incident, but one worth talking about. And that's how we've got from the Daily os newsroom. We're going to be back in the afternoon with your headlines. Until then, have a great day. My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
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