ARTISTS, POLITICS AND FESTIVALS
Kneecap’ s Dan Lambert on free speech and festivals
One of the most controversial acts of recent times, Kneecap have remained firmly in the eye of the storm about artists’ freedom of speech since they played Coachella early this year. The band’ s manager Dan Lambert spoke to Access at the Amsterdam Dance Event about the impact on the band, their career, and the ongoing relationship with festival promoters and the wider music industry.
For Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap, 2025 kicked off with an explosive reaction to the band’ s set at Coachella, which involved pro-Palestinian imagery. The fallout saw the band part ways with their US agents, and being dropped from festivals including AEG’ s Eden Sessions and German festivals Hurricane and Southside.
Despite a huge backlash that even saw prime minister Keir Starmer chip in with a call for Kneecap to be removed from Glastonbury Festival’ s lineup, the event’ s team stuck with them despite also receiving a letter, signed by a large group of senior music industry figures, also calling for the band to be pulled.
Among the other events to keep Kneecap on the bill were the UK’ s Wide Awake and Green Man festivals. The band have now been booked for some of Europe’ s biggest festivals next year, including the 77,000- capacity Boomtown Fair and Primavera Sound Barcelona( 75,000). Despite that high profile support, Kneecap is far from having an easy time of it. They are unable to play in Canada or the US and are banned in Hungary. A chief magistrate has thrown out a terrorism charge against bandmember Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a gig, but the Crown Prosecution Service is to appeal.
Dan Lambert
18 accessaa. co. uk