Amyl & The Sniffers Speak Out on Bob Vylan and Kneecap Drama

The tabloids are currently frothing harder than the mosh-pit after Saturday’s incendiary West Holts double-header.

First came Bob Vylan’s televised cluster-bomb of “Free Palestine” banners and that now-infamous “death to the IDF” chant. Then Belfast fire-starters Kneecap sauntered on, torched Keir Starmer, saluted Palestine Action and still found time for a cheeky jig to ‘Sick in the Head’. Cue the subsequent moral panic: MPs demanding prosecutions, Sharon Osbourne clutching pearls, Ofcom firing up the fax machine.

Amid the finger-wagging, one band who actually shared the stage – Amyl & The Sniffers – have laced up and waded into the scrum. Posting a screed on Instagram, Amy Taylor and co. slammed the “British media frenzy” painting Vylan and Kneecap as rogue extremists. “Artists all weekend at Glastonbury – pop, rock, rap, punk, even the DJs – spoke up onstage,” they wrote. “Trying to make it look like just a couple of ‘bad bands’ so it appears the public isn’t as anti-genocide as it is.”

Translation: if you’re rattled by politics in music, aim your bile north of the barriers. “Don’t blame the musicians,” they said. “Blame the politicians and journalists… the political landscape in general.” In other words, if our leaders stopped green-lighting bombs and broadcasters stopped sanitising the blood spatter, artists might – just maybe – stick to crowd-surfing and tequila shots.

Taylor had already let rip during the Sniffers’ own set, dedicating ‘Guided by Angels’ to “the people of Palestine” and roasting Australia’s government for “doing jack shit”. That declaration sailed across West Holts unedited – proof that political outrage is highly selective. The BBC cut Kneecap’s live stream entirely, but Bob Vylan went out raw until Ofcom started quacking. Now Avon & Somerset Police are “reviewing footage”; Lisa Nandy wants answers; the US has yanked Bob Vylan’s visas. All for words – shouted over guitar feedback in a Somerset field.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s death-toll rolls on, un-livestreamed. Amyl’s post nails the hypocrisy: mainstream outlets love “political art” when it’s a nice, tasteful clap-back at single-use plastic, but recoil when the target is tanks, drones and their own advertisers. Glastonbury was founded on counter-culture – Michael Eavis himself said, “People who don’t like the politics can go somewhere else.”

For now, Kneecap await court in August, Bob Vylan’s US tour lies in tatters and Amyl & The Sniffers keep hollering from the pit. If you’re still whining that music should stay apolitical, I think maybe you’ve been listening to the wrong bands.