Bob Vylan’s planned show in Tilburg has been cancelled by the venue due to comments about right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s death.
An upcoming Bob Vylan show in the Netherlands has been cancelled by the venue after a video of frontman Bobby Vylan’s commentary on Charlie Kirk’s death was posted to social media.
Kirk, a controversial right-wing activist, was killed on Wednesday (September 10) after being shot in the neck during an event at Utah Valley University. In the wake of the shooting, Bob Vylan performed in Amsterdam, and dedicated their song ‘CSGB’ to Kirk.
In a now-viral video of the dedication at the Paradiso Grote Zaal, the Bob Vylan frontman said: “I wanna dedicate this next one to an absolute piece of shit of a human being. The pronouns was/were. ‘Cos if you chat shit, you will get banged. Rest in piss, Charlie Kirk, you piece of shit.”
In the wake of Bobby Vylan’s comments, Tilburg venue 013 has cancelled the punk-rap duo’s upcoming show scheduled for September 16. The venue said the comments about Kirk “go too far.”
The venue posted a full statement to their official website (translated to English), explaining that they cancelled the show due to the “controversial statements” made at Paradiso. “Despite the controversy that arose after their Glastonbury performance, 013 decided to let Bob Vylan perform in Tilburg,” they said.
The venue stated that it “understood the artist’s anger” in response to Israel, “a situation that deserves our full attention, even though his words were not our own”.
“We still share that shock and outrage. Moreover, Bob Vylan clarified in his own statement that his earlier statement ‘death to the IDF’ was not an anti-Semitic slogan, but rather criticism of the Israeli army.”
The update continues: “013 wanted to send a message that Gaza deserves full attention and that outrage about it deserves a place on stage. We still stand by that. However, we believe the statements Bob Vylan made last night at Paradiso clearly cross a line. We strongly reject the trivialisation of political murder and the call to “go look for people on the streets.”
“Although we understand that the statements were made in the context of punk and activism, and that the reporting on this is sometimes less nuanced than what actually took place, we still believe that these new expressions go too far. For us, they no longer fall within the limits of what we can offer a stage.”
Bobby Vylan shared a video to Instagram on Sunday (September 14) denying the duo had celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death on stage. “I did call him a piece of shit, that much is true,” he said, “but at no point was his death celebrated.”
“If it was, go find me a quote. Go find me something that proves that we were celebrating his death. You’re not going to find it because it didn’t happen. What did happen, is, one reporter that bought their ticket online, came with the sole purpose of finding something to report and after I called [Kirk] a piece of shit and we played a song, they have written that up as a celebration. Not a celebration, isn’t a celebration, wasn’t a celebration. Calm down.”
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