Bob Vylan removed from European tour after controversial Glastonbury performance

Weeks on from their Glastonbury set, Bob Vylan are still facing backlash for their controversial chanting of ‘death to the IDF’.

The chant, amid others supporting Palestine, has become the focal point of a political storm, with an investigation by the police as well as Glastonbury and the BBC condemning their performance.

Now, the band – consisting of Bobby and Bobbie Vylan – have ‘decided not to join’ Gogol Bordello on their European tour over the next few months.

The He’s A Man singer wrote: ‘Due to logistical complications, we have decided not to join our friends Gogol Bordello on their upcoming European tour.

‘However, we will be heading to Europe in the coming months for both festivals and headlining shows.’

Gogol Bordello painted a far more detailed picture of the situation and highlighted that this was ‘not our decision’ and beyond their control.

The punk rockers said: ‘Following Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance, their shows with Gogol Bordello were cancelled by the promoter and venues in Germany.

‘The decision to remove them from the bill was not our decision and beyond our control. In the aftermath, we needed to evaluate the situation, and we decided to remove BV from the tour until we could fully comprehend the situation.’

While they noted that ‘a conversation was re-opened’ to bring the band on tour, it became ‘logistically impossible’ given the circumstances surrounding Bob Vylan.

‘We worked diligently together with our friends Bob Vylan to find a solution but in the end it didn’t work out,’ they added.

The Start Wearing Purple singers concluded: ‘Gogol Bordello is comprised of members from various nationalities and celebrates international understanding consequentially, we value freedom of speech from all perspectives.’

This isn’t the only gig the We Live Here rappers have been removed from, with their US visas revoked ahead of their tour.

A senior State Department official told The Daily Caller: ‘The Trump Administration, the U.S. government will not issue visas to any foreigner who supports terrorists.’

In their first post-Glastonbury performance in London, Bobby Vylan – real name Pascal Robinson-Foster – told the crowd to stop with the IDF chant.

The IDF is the Israeli Defence Force, a conscripted army which comes with a three-month jail sentence for anyone who does not join.

‘You are going to get me in trouble,’ he told the crowd at The 100 before leading them instead in a chant of ‘Free, free Palestine’. 

‘We never ever could have imagined that we would create a conversation that needed to be created and needed to be had,’ he continued.

The Hunger Games hitmaker added: ‘What is happening over there is an absolute mess, it is criminal what is happening to these people, they are now being concentrated into camps.

‘They have been trying to silence us, they thought that this would shut us up, but the album is back in the charts.

At a more recent show in Bristol’s Thekla, he addressed the continuing controversy and shared: ‘I am not just a rabble rousing troublemaker, alright?’

Bobby explained that he has an undergraduate degree, finishing top of his class with a partial scholarship for his masters – which he finished in ‘one year instead of two’.

‘This is a gentleman that was unfortunately removed from school very early and left with few, if any GCSEs,’ Bobby explained. ‘I personally have turned my life around.’

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