![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2.79237626.jpg\" "\\"The")
The Last Dinner Party perform during the Brit Awards at London\u2019s O2 Arena (Lucy North\/PA)<\/p>\nA string of bands have pulled out of the Victorious music festival hours before they were due to perform after Irish folk music band The Mary Wallopers claimed they were \u201ccut off\u201d for displaying a Palestinian flag.<\/p>\n
The Last Dinner Party, Cliffords and The Academic announced on Saturday that they would no longer be performing at the Portsmouth\u00a0music festival following Friday\u2019s incident.<\/p>\n
The organisers, who claimed the band had their set cut short for using a \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d chant, have since issued an apology to the band and pledged to make \u201ca substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Last Dinner Party perform during the Brit Awards at London\u2019s O2 Arena (Lucy North\/PA)<\/p>\n
Rock band The Last Dinner Party said they would boycott the festival in a statement shared on their Instagram page.<\/p>\n
The statement said: \u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout this summer we have used our stages to encourage our audiences to donate even a drink\u2019s worth of money to Medical Aid for Palestinians, and today we urge you more than ever to do the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following The Mary Wallopers\u2019 set, a spokesperson for Victorious said: \u201cWe spoke to the artist before the performance regarding the festival\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough a flag was displayed on stage contrary to our policy, and this was raised with the artist\u2019s crew, the show was not ended at this point, and it was the artist\u2019s decision to stop the song.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, The Mary Wallopers claimed the festival had released a \u201cmisleading statement to the press claiming they cut our sound because of a discriminatory chant, and not the band\u2019s call to Free Palestine.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur 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 \u2018Free Palestine,’\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe same crew member is later heard in the video saying \u2018you aren\u2019t playing until the flag is removed\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rock band The Academic have also pulled out of the festival, saying they could not \u201cin good conscience\u201d perform at \u201ca festival that silences free speech\u201d, while Irish band Cliffords said they \u201crefuse to play if we are to be censored for showing our support to the people of Palestine\u201d.<\/p>\n
As the bands announced they would no longer perform at the festival, the organisers issued another statement on Instagram which read: \u201cThe Mary Wallopers are a fantastic band and we were very much looking forward to their performance at Victorious on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t handle the explanation of our policies sensitively or far enough in advance to allow a sensible conclusion to be reached.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe accept that, although mics remained live for longer, sound for The Mary Wallopers\u2019 audience was cut as described in the band\u2019s video and that comments after that were not audible to the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are sorry that this situation has come about and will be making a substantial donation to humanitarian relief efforts for the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The festival is set to feature Vampire Weekend, The Kaiser Chiefs and Kings Of Leon over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Starting Vampire Weekend\u2019s headline set on the Common Stage, lead singer Ezra Koenig said: \u201cIf someone was censored for flying a flag then that\u2019s wrong and they deserve an apology.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the people of Palestine \u201cdeserve our sympathies\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A string of bands have pulled out of the Victorious music festival hours before they were due to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,11302,9168,17136,2104],"class_list":{"0":"post-19657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-place-europe","13":"tag-place-republic-of-ireland","14":"tag-place-south-east","15":"tag-place-uk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}