Kneecap played their first gigs since member Mo Chara was charged with a terror offense in London this week, alleging that authorities tried to cancel the shows.
Earlier in the week, Chara – real name Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – was charged with a terror offense after he allegedly displayed a Hezbollah flag onstage during a show in London late last year.
“We deny this ‘offense’ and will vehemently defend ourselves,” the band wrote in response, adding: “This is a carnival of distraction. We are not the story. Genocide is.” In an earlier statement last month, they had said: “Let us be unequivocal: we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.”
After the charge was made public, the band then played a last-minute gig at the 100 Club in London on Thursday (May 22) before their headline set at the Wide Awake festival in Brockwell Park last night.
During the Wide Awake show, Ó hAnnaidh told the crowd: “They tried to stop this gig. Honestly lads, you’ve no idea how close we were to being pulled off this gig.” He added: “Has anybody been watching the news?! It wasn’t even me!”
Their set began the same as it did at Coachella last month, with messages on the screen reading: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is being enabled by the British government.” The messaging at Coachella drew widespread criticism on social media and television, with the band then coming on stage at Wide Awake to a video compiling all the criticism received from political commentators on both sides of the Atlantic.
Kneecap are set to play a high-profile, televised set at Glastonbury next month, with Ó hAnnaidh alleging in a further speech to the crowd that his charge was accelerated in order for that show to be pulled.
He said: “I’d like to take the time to say, bear in mind I went for an interview with the counter-terror police and within days they came to a verdict that they were going to charge me, never has it been that quick. The reason it was that quick is because Glastonbury is just around the corner. They’re trying to silence us from speaking on stage at Glastonbury the way we did at Coachella. That’s a fact.”
His bandmate Moglai Bap then encouraged fans to gather outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court on June 18 for Ó hAnnaidh’s hearing to show their support.
Later during the set, Ó hAnnaidh said: “Mo Chara, Moglai Bap and DJ Próvai from west Belfast and Derry are not the story. We are being made an example of. The Israeli lobbyists are trying to prove to other artists that if you speak out, we’re going to hit you where it hurts most. They’re trying to cancel gigs, they’re trying to cancel my freedom of travel, and the fact that I’m speaking to this amount of people, and I assume the majority of people agree, shows that we’re on the right side of history.”
As well as Kneecap’s headline performance, Wide Awake as a whole was under significant threat in recent weeks, with a local campaign group winning a legal battle against the festival’s organisers, Brockwell Live, with a court ruling that the events didn’t have the correct planning permission.
Local resident Rebekah Shaman, leader of the Protect Brockwell Park campaign group, claimed that festivals can only use public parks for 28 days per year without gaining additional planning permission, and that the parks would be used for up to 37 days in 2025.
The festivals – which also include Field Day, Cross The Tracks, Mighty Hoopla and more – then confirmed they would go ahead as planned despite the ruling. “We take our stewardship of Brockwell Park seriously,” Brockwell Live said. “As we prepare to deliver these much-loved, culturally significant events, we remain fully committed to its care, upkeep, and long-term wellbeing.”
This article originally appeared on Rolling Stone UK.