Radar Festival considered Kneecap as a headliner to replace Bob Vylan

Posted On July 3, 2025July 3, 2025

Catherine Jackson-Smith, the organiser of Manchester’s Radar Festival, has revealed that the event considered booking Kneecap to replace Bob Vylan as headliner after their recent Glastonbury controversy.

Bob Vylan performed on the West Holts Stage at Glastonbury on June 28th and led the crowd through a chant of “Death to the IDF,” referencing the Israel Defence Forces. They also chanted “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea”. Their next live show was set to be Radar Festival, held at Victoria Warehouse in Manchester between July 4th and July 6th, but they were dropped from the lineup.

Speaking on the Two Promoters One Pod podcast, organiser Catherine Jackson-Smith has now revealed that the festival did not want to remove Bob Vylan from the lineup, but was “forced”. She needed to either remove Bob Vylan and go ahead with the festival, or face a cancellation for 41 other bands should she not remove them.

She then described what was “categorically, one of the most horrendous professional discussions I have ever had” with Bob Vylan. Furthermore, Jackson-Smith and team are tirelessly attempting to find a new headliner for the Saturday night.

The team has tried to choose a headliner who can “say what we want to say” politically; they made a list of a few bands who openly disagreed with Kneecap’s censorship. They immediately went down that list of bands to see if any would work as a replacement headliner.

Jackson-Smith’s colleague Joe had an alternative first response, asking, “What if we did Kneecap as a secret set? Because that makes a statement without having to make a statement, and that is what we wanted to do.” Kneecap are set to play alongside Blondshell, Amyl and the Sniffers and Fontaines DC on Saturday at London’s Finsbury Park.

Kneecap are facing a terror charge after footage from a concert in London in November 2024 shows band member Kneecap Mo Chara shouting, “Up Hamas, Up Hezbollah.” Keir Starmer has hit out at the band, deeming them “not appropriate”, while Bob Vylan’s vehement pro-Palestinian display was brought about as they expressed solidarity with Kneecap.

However, the organiser noted that they might “end up with somebody that has no discernible political opinion in any manner at this point, because if they are free and they can play on Saturday, maybe that is the criteria we are looking for at this stage!”

Though less than a week since the performance, the punk duo have experienced huge backlash already. Kave Fest in France has also confirmed that they will no longer host Bob Vylan, and a venue in Cologne will no longer let the band support Gogol Bordello in September. This comes after the Trump administration revoked their US visas, which will prevent them from hitting the road with their grandson later this year. They have also been dropped by talent agency UTA.

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