More than one summer music festival has been targeted by violent, ignorant people, says Fleet Street Fox. But while Nova can rise again, Glastonbury’s goose is long since cooked
Is this the way the future’s meant to feel? Twenty thousand people in a field, calling for the death of Jews, comfortable in the knowledge that if war ever comes for them they can afford to buy their way off the front line.
A lady in a sunflower hat. A man proudly wearing the badge of the CND. A sea of people, all able to find £400 a head and the time off work to head to Somerset, all of whom have benefited from state-funded education, and not one expecting a terrorist to paraglide in and open up with an Uzi, as they danced and partied without a care in the world.
They seemed not to notice the racial hatred, even when it poured from their lips. In fact, they’d probably be very offended at the suggestion, and point out they were echoing the words of a black man, and talking about the wrongs of a genocide, so it couldn’t possibly be racist and don’t you know how nice everyone is at music festivals?
But when a pretty poor punk duo called Bob Vylan, whose sledgehammer wit is so perfectly displayed in their name, invited – or is it incited? The police will know – them to shout “Death to the IDF” it was a signal that everything that was once jolly lovely about ‘Glasto’ is as dead and buried as the 378 people slaughtered at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Had Somerset turned into the same sort of killing field, to provoke a government by the murder of its innocents into an era-defining conflict, the survivors may well have signed up to fight back on the spot, sunflower hats and all. Whether the UK armed forces would have considered them any damned use is a different matter.
But of course it did not happen in Britain, because Britain has no terrorist enemies, has never had a war within, and has always fought on the side of the angels. Except when it hasn’t. And certainly, no-one has ever called for the death of the people who keep us safe, except for the Irish, the Northern Irish, the Iranians, ISIS, the Taliban, the Welsh, the Scottish, the Americans, the French, the Germans, the Italians, oh and quite a lot of everyone else.
Part of the reason for the 40ft high metal fences that surround the Glastonbury site is not just to protect the wealthy people within from having to share sound with people who can only afford a download. It’s also to keep them safe from the many sorts of terrorist who would quite enjoy walking into a field full of entitled white prats and blowing as many of them as possible sky-high.
But people who float through life in fashionable wellies, who can afford to buy a tent for fun rather than fashion one out of sacks in a refugee camp, and who think it’s a lark to be muddy for a couple of days because they know they won’t have to wash in a puddle for the next year, did not feel empathy for a single second with the festival-goers who made the mistake of partying while living next door to someone who wanted them dead. They just called for the death of millions of Jews, because someone suggested they do so, and didn’t think twice about whose company they were keeping.
They didn’t think that the Israeli Defence Force gets its troops via conscription, with little chance to excuse themselves. That everyone is a reservist until they’re 40. They didn’t think that may mean the IDF is not very professional, they don’t all want to be there, and maybe aren’t very good at shooting things, or indeed at not shooting things. They didn’t question as to why Israelis still have conscription, and whether it might be linked to the fact people are trying to kill civilians ALL THE TIME. And they especially didn’t do the maths about Palestinian people and Israeli people, who both suffer warmongering leaders, and if wanting your own country is fine for one of them, then it’s fine for both.
Nor did they recall that their own government – this nice, Labour, cosy, British government – is talking about bringing back conscription. While the soft-bellied Glasto-goers, with an average age approaching 44, could escape it, their children may not. How’d it feel if someone shouted “Death to little Crispin and Charlotte”? Not so socially-acceptable, then.
But Glastonbury has long been the place where common sense went to die. From an indie, hippie festival in a field it’s become an industry of its own, with established, mainstream acts vying with smaller ones purely to cash in. But when it’s got to the point that Rod Stewart and Lulu are on the main stage, it needs more cops and cleaners than a recently-discovered mass grave, and genuine hippies can’t scrape together the entrance fee, it’s no longer serving any purpose beyond pure, naked capitalism.
Vylan have put on a load of new followers, who will no doubt get tapped up to crowdfund the legal fees if they face any sort of police action for inciting the murder of an entire nation’s youth. And they seem to have downgraded their status from being “violent punks” to being concerned about school dinners, and toned down calling for death to calling for peaceful protest marches. Good luck, as a criminal defence lawyer might say, with that.
But Glastonbury’s rather tainted star has fallen even further into the mire. It’s surely time for this middle-class, middle-of-the-road, money-making, maggot-attracting hate crime to take its final bow, and leave music festivals to people who still know that they’re supposed to involve some peace and love.
Otherwise next year they’ll try to go one better, and we’ll see Ayatollah Khameini in the ‘legends’ slot, and bomb-making classes in a tepee.