Speaking at a surprise gig in London last night, the band claimed the terror charge against them is part of a campaign to silence them
Speaking at a surprise gig in London last night (May 24), Kneecap claimed that the terror charge against one of their members is part of a “witch-hunt” intended to stop them from playing at Glastonbury.
Yesterday, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27, who performs under the name Mo Chara, was charged with a terror offence after allegedly waving the flag of Hezbollah onstage at a gig last November. Hezbollah is a proscribed group in the UK, meaning it is illegal to “invite support” for them.
After denying the charge and promising to fight it in court, the band announced a surprise gig at the 100 Club in London, which they said sold out in 90 seconds. The poster for the gig featured a recent quote from former Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten, who suggested the band “need a bloody good kneecapping”.
Ó hAnnaidh took the stage with duct tape over his mouth, before saying, “There’s a reason why what’s happened to me, happened before Glastonbury. There’s a reason they’re trying to fucking stop me speaking at Glastonbury in front of the UK.”
His bandmate, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, said, “This is our first gig back after [Coachella]. They want to stop what we’re doing, because they want us to stop protesting. There are 60,000-plus dead in Gaza right now. That’s the real story, it’s not about us.”
Kneecap were first investigated by counter-terrorism police after footage emerged which appeared to show one of the members saying, “the only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP”. This led to a wave of condemnations from politicians, including Keir Starmer and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. After being criticised by the husband of Jo Cox and the daughter of David Amess, two MPs who were murdered, the band offer “heartfelt apologies”, saying that they never intended to cause them hurt and insisting that the clip had been taken out of context.
The band have since had a number of performances cancelled, including Hurricane Festival and Southside festival, and gigs at the Eden Project in Cornwall and Plymouth Pavilions. MPs have called on their appearances at other festivals, including Glastonbury and TRNST, to be cancelled, although there’s no indication that this will happen. Tonight (May 23), the band will be performing a headline slot at Wide Awake festival in Brockwell Park.
According to an Instagram post, the band will be dropping a new track on its Whatsapp Channel at 1pm today. “Kemi Badenoch you might wanna sit down for this one... if you’ve any seats left 😉,” the post read.