Amyl & The Sniffers have defended Kneecap and Bob Vylan after controversy surrounding their Glastonbury 2025 performances.
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The two artists played back-to-back sets on the West Holts Stage on Saturday afternoon (June 28), with the BBC announcing shortly before Kneecap’s set that they would not be live-streaming their performance, and would instead air an edited version on iPlayer on demand at a later time.
Bob Vylan used their platform, while being livestreamed, to voice their support for Palestine, call out the BBC, Israel, the US and UK governments and more. Throughout the performance, political slogans were projected onto the screen behind them, including “Free Palestine – United Nations have called it a genocide – the BBC calls it a ‘conflict’”.
The set has since become the centre of debate, after frontman Bobby Vylan led the crowd in a chant of “death, death to the IDF”.
Afterwards, Kneecap took the stage for a performance that saw them hit out at their detractors, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Sharon Osbourne, and reaffirm their solidarity with Palestine and the activist group Palestine Action. You can check out a full write-up here.
Since, the Avon and Somerset Police have said they will be investigating Bob Vylan’s performance, as well as Kneecap’s set, to “determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation.”
It follows criticism from Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, who has ordered the BBC to explain why Bob Vylan’s performance was streamed live, and Cabinet Minister Wes Streeting, who also told the Israeli embassy to “get its own house in order”.
Meanwhile, Glastonbury issued a statement on Bob Vylan’s performance, saying it was “appalled” by their “death to the IDF” chants, and the BBC said this morning (June 30) that they should have pulled live coverage of the set after Ofcom said the were treating it “as a matter of urgency”.
Now, Amyl & The Sniffers have issued a statement on the media “frenzy” surrounding both artists’ performances across the weekend.
Taking to Instagram this morning, the band wrote: “The British media in a frenzy about Bob Vylan and Kneecap but artists all weekend at Glastonbury from pop to rock to rap to punk to DJs spoke up onstage and there were tons of flags on every streamed set.
“Trying to make it look like just a couple of isolated incidents and a couple of ‘bad bands’ so it appears the public isn’t as anti-genocide as it is, and trying to make it look like Bob and Kneecap are one-offs, instead of that the status quo has shifted majorly and that people are concerned and desperate for our governments to listen,” they continued.
“And if you don’t want politics in music don’t blame the musicians blame the politicians and journalists, and the political landscape in general, for not doing their job, and there’ll be more and more of to until it stops.”
Amyl and the Sniffers defending Bob Vylan & Kneecap and condemning the british media pic.twitter.com/XvAwfV8M16
— music wins (@musicwins1) June 29, 2025
It comes after they used their own Glasto set to make a statement on the ongoing war in Gaza, while also drawing attention to the political situation in their home country of Australia. “I’m thinking about the people in Palestine. We’re from Australia, we ain’t doing jack shit, I know yours aren’t doing jack shit,” frontwoman Amy Taylor told the crowd.
Other artists who made pro-Palestine statements across the weekend included The Libertines, who wrapped up their set with drummer Gary Powell holding a Palestine flag in front of the crowd.
CMAT also ended her performance with a chant of ‘Free, free Palestine’, while The Maccabees guitarist Felix White closed their own set saying: “Before we leave, we’re thinking of the people of Palestine and we know you are as well.”
Last night (June 29), Bobby took to Instagram to chronicle his thoughts on the incident in a post captioned “I said what I said.” In the post, he shared that he had seen his daughter voicing her opinions on school dinners and that it was a reminder that he stands behind what he said at Glastonbury.
Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military campaign on occupied Gaza for almost two years, since the October 2023 attack by Hamas at the Israeli music festival Supernova where 1,195 people were killed.
The UN has found Israel’s military actions to be consistent with genocide, and at least 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has continually denied that what’s going on in Palestine is considered a genocide, and has argued that it has not partaken in any war crimes.
The post Amyl & The Sniffers defend Kneecap and Bob Vylan after Glasto controversy: “If you don’t want politics in music, don’t blame the musician – blame the politicians and journalists” appeared first on NME.