The Academic and The Last Dinner Party pull out of Victorious Festival following 'decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers'

The Academic and The Last Dinner Party have both taken to social media this afternoon to confirm they will no longer be performing at Victorious Festival (August 23).

This comes following yesterday’s incident involving The Mary Wallopers whose set abruptly came to a halt after they were ‘cut off’ for having a Palestinian flag on the stage, and chanting ‘free Palestine.’

The Academic, who were due to perform on Castle Stage at 4.05pm, took to Facebook saying: “We’ve taken the decision to pull out of Victorious Festival.

“We can’t in good conscience stand up and play at a festival that silences free speech and the right to express your views.

“We stand in solidarity with the other Irish acts here this weekend. Up the Mary Wallopers. Free Palestine.”

The Last Dinner Party has also confirmed they will no longer perform a set on the Common Stage at 7.45pm this evening with a post saying: “We are outraged by the decision made to silence The Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious.

“As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today.

“As Gazans are deliberately plunged into catastrophic famine after two years of escalating violence. It is urgent and obvious that artists use their platform to draw attention to the cause. To see an attempt to direct attention away from the genocide in order to maintain an apolitical image is immensely disappointing.

“Throughout this summer we have used our stages to encourage our audiences to donate even a drink’s worth of money to Medical Aid for Palestinians, and today we urge you more than ever to do the same.

“We are so deeply sorry to our fans who were looking forward to seeing us today, and we are devastated to be put in this position that upsets both us and you.

“Free Palestine - The Last Dinner Party.”

A Victorious statement was released yesterday following the decision to cut the sound during The Mary Wallopers set, saying: “We spoke to the artist before the performance regarding the festival’s long-standing policy of not allowing flags of any kind at the event, but that we respect their right to express their views during the show.

“Although a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist’s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist’s decision to stop the song. The decision by the event management to cut the sound and end the performance was only taken after the band used a chant which is widely understood to have a discriminatory context.

“To be clear, we respect the right of artists to use their platform to express their views within the inclusive nature of the event and it was not the band’s call to ‘Free Palestine’ which resulted in this outcome.”

The Mary Wallopers have since taken to social media rejecting the statement released by Victorious.

The band said: “Yesterday, a famine was declared in Gaza, where at least 65 people were killed by Israeli attacks, all the while Israel pushed ahead with plans to split the West Bank in two. These are the important facts about yesterday.

“We are uploading this video so everybody can see @victoriousfestival cut our gig short for having a Palestinian flag on stage.

“The festival have released a misleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant, and not the band’s call to Free Palestine.

“Our video clearly shows a Victorious crew member coming on stage, interfering with our show, removing the flag from the stage and then the sound being cut following a chant of “Free Palestine”. The same crew member is later heard in the video saying ‘you aren’t playing until the flag is removed’.

“We completely reject Victorious’ portrayal of today’s events and request that they retract their statement immediately.

“We know this is getting some attention and we don’t want another distraction which takes attention away from the genocide that is happening in Palestine.

“FREE PALESTINE.”

Victorious has since released a second statement this afternoon saying: “The Mary Wallopers are a fantastic band and we were very much looking forward to their performance at Victorious on Friday. We are in the business of putting on great shows, not cutting them off and this is the last thing we wanted, for the band, their fans and ourselves.

“We didn’t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached. This put the band and our own team in a difficult situation which never should have arisen. We would like to sincerely apologise to all concerned.

“We absolutely support the right of artists to freely express their views from the stage, within the law and the inclusive nature of the event. Our policy of not allowing flags of any kind, which has been in place for many years for wider event management and safety reasons, is not meant to compromise that right.