The Mary Wallopers were just a couple of songs into their show at the Portsmouth festival last Friday (August 22) when they had their sound cut off. 

The band then took to their Instagram to confirm the reason that they were removed from stage, saying: “Just got cut off at Victorious Festival for having a Palestinian flag on the stage. We’ve been doing this for 6 years now and its never happened before. Free Palestine all day every day.”

Victorious Festival has just cut off The Mary Wallopers for showing support to Palestine. So grim. pic.twitter.com/nV2010AcUY

— Leigh Kimmins McManus (@LeighMcManus1) August 22, 2025

Victorious is one of many festivals which is operated by Superstruct Entertainment – a company owned by the controversial global investment firm KKR, which has been criticised for its alleged stakes in weapons manufacturing companies and Israel cooperations operating in the occupied Palestine territories.

A spokesperson for the festival spoke to NME, confirming their reasonings behind cutting the sound of The Mary Wallopers, saying: “We spoke to the artist before the performance regarding the festival’s 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.

“The decision by the event management to cut the sound and end the performance was only taken after the band used a chant which is wildly understood to have a discriminatory context.”

Footage from the performance, as seen below, shows that the only chants heard were “free, free Palestine” followed by shouts of “Let them play” once the sound was cut off.

 

 

 

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A post shared by The Mary Wallopers (@marywallopers)

Since the set, many artists and bands have come out in support for the Irish band. Kneecap were the first to make a statement, saying: “Speak up against genocide in England and you’re treated like a criminal. Up The Mary Wallopers. Free Palestine! Free the 6 counties!”

The controversy then led to a boycott of the festival by multiple bands who were scheduled to perform during the weekend, including The Last Dinner Party.

The Brit Award winners took to Instagram to announce their decision to drop out of the festival at short notice: “We are outraged by the decision to silence The Mary Wallopers yesterday at Victorious. As a band we cannot cosign political censorship and will therefore be boycotting the festival today.

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A post shared by THE LAST DINNER PARTY (@thelastdinnerparty)

“As 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.”

Fellow Irish bands The Academic and Cliffords then followed The Last Dinner Party’s decision to boycott the festival.

Vampire Weekend then headlined the festival on Saturday (August 23) night and took the chance to address the controversy, with frontman Ezra Koenig saying: “If someone was punished for flying a flag, that is wrong and they deserve an apology. The terrible suffering of the Palestinian people deserves all of our sympathy.”

The Mary Wallopers are yet to receive an apology from Victorious Festival at the time of writing. Keep up to date with this ongoing issue here at mxdwn.co.uk.

After the first rendition of the song, frontman Ezra Koenig said, “Hmm that song is too short.” After the second, he added, “These shows are essentially attended rehearsals, we’ve got a lot of shows to play this year. I’m sorry, but…” before the band played ‘A-Punk’ for a final time.

After the last time, Koenig said, “Okay, now we’re tired. That’s the most times we’ve ever played it – we wanted to beat the record.”

Vampire Weekend will release their fourth album ‘Father of the Bride’ on May 3rd.

See reactions, photos and videos from the gig on social media below.

Vampire Weekend weekend! Great 10am gig in a tiny venue. A-Punk played three times in a row! pic.twitter.com/1ApYslo8oZ

— Joe Williams (@JoeWilliamsUK) 23 March 2019

Wow. What a privilege that was. Two hours plus of @vampireweekend at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning in an intimate London venue @Islington_AH Bravo. Wonderful pic.twitter.com/jag319KgHK

— Chris Skudder (@chris_skudder) 23 March 2019

Just watched Vampire Weekend play A-Punk three times in a row and I haven’t even had breakfast yet — Shaun Curran (@shaun_curran) 23 March 2019

Lovely bit of @vampireweekend at 9am on a Saturday. You can tell it was a good show because I didn’t get any of my top three and still came away grinning pic.twitter.com/ub2VFJtiGC

— Sam Healer (@anewthought) 23 March 2019

 

 

 

The announcement comes after it was confirmed, last month, that Middlesbrough will play host to the event this year, with a stellar bill led by Miley Cyrus, The 1975 and Mumford & Sons. Tickets for the event will go on sale, on Thursday the 14th of March 2019, at 5PM. All relevant information about tickets can be found here.

Speaking about the event, Greg James, said: “The listeners are the most important thing about Radio 1 and we think they’re brilliant. Without them, we’d just be a collection of weirdos talking to ourselves in a room so we like to say thanks by pulling in some of the world’s biggest artists to do an enormous music festival for them. We traditionally take Big Weekend to a part of the UK that doesn’t normally get these sorts of events and I can’t wait to take some of the best acts on the planet to Middlesbrough.”

Our #BigWeekend line-up just got a whole lot BIGGER!

Check out all the new names just announced, including @bmthofficial, @billieeilish, @elliegoulding, @HRVY, @duttypaul, @LewisCapaldi and LOADS more

Want to be there? Tickets go on sale Thursday 14th March from 5pm! pic.twitter.com/GTfxTWyobH

— BBC Radio 1 (@BBCR1) March 11, 2019

Now, it has been announced that they’ll be joined by an impressive supporting bill. Speaking on Radio 1’s Breakfast Show, this morning (March 11), host Greg James confirmed that fans can also expect performances from the likes of Stormzy, Billie Eilish, Vampire Weekend, Bring Me The Horizon, Pale Waves and Sigrid.

The following acts are also on the bill, on the festival’s opening night, Saturday the 25th of May 2019, and joining the already stellar line-up is Miley Cyrus, Stormzy, Mumford & Sons, Bring Me The Horizon, Billie Eilish, Anne-Marie, Carli XCX, James Arthur, Future, Lewis Capaldi, Jess Glynne, Sam Fender, Sigala, The Amazons, Vampire Weekend, and Khalid.

Honoured to be on the bill for @BBCR1 #BigWeekend especially as they’re off to my hometown of middlesbrough! This is going to be an unbelievable show and I look forward to being a part of it and giving the people of Middlesbrough and the surrounding area a quality show! UTB !!! pic.twitter.com/b42tuXihXH — James Arthur (@JamesArthur23) March 11, 2019

Meanwhile, the names leading the festivals second night, Sunday the 26th of May 2019, are The 1975, Little Mix, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Ellie Goulding, HRVY, Pale Waves, CamelPhat, Fredo, Jax Jones, Rita Ora, Sean Paul, Sigrid, Two Door Cinema Club, Mabel, and Zara Larsson.

Vampire Weekend have released three albums since their 2008 self titled debut, which Rolling Stone magazine placed at 24 on their list of 100 greatest debut albums of all time. Koening explained the name ‘FOTB’ is the initials of the album name, with the full name currently unknown to the public. Fans are now speculating on Twitter as to what ‘FOTB’ could stand for.

New #VampireWeekend album is called “FOTB”. I wonder what that stands for…. @arzE

— Jacob Sloan (@JacobSloan22) January 17, 2019

the title of vampire weekend’s upcoming 18-track double LP is initialled “FOTB” which i can confirm will be 18 unique renditions of Flight Of The Bumblebee — joeg (@gojarbe) January 17, 2019

FOTB stands for “Front of the Bus.” Mark me. #vampireweekend #fotb

— James Peach (@MrPeachAV) January 17, 2019

The band are giving no secrets away about the album’s full name, or when it will be announced. ’18 unique renditions of Flight Of The Bumblebee seems unlikely’, but with Vampire Weekend constantly ripping up the rule-book when it comes to music, anything is possible. In December 2017 Koening confirmed, in an interview with The NME, that although founding member Rostam Batmanglij had left the band he would be appearing on the band’s next album, so it may be safe to assume he will appear on FOTB, although it is unknown how regularly or in what capacity.

Vampire Weekend are already confirmed to be playing at Open’er Festival, Mad Cool Festival and NOS Alive Festival across Europe so expect to see them at more events across Europe as line ups are confirmed. With the band previously playing the Pyramid Stage in 2013, a return to UK dates seems likely.

(Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat)

 

 

 

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To the fans:⁣ I know that 5-6 years is considered a long time between records. Personally, I think it’s a dignified pace befitting a band that’s already placed three albums in stores but everyone has their own sense of time. (I swear the time between 3 & 4 felt shorter to me than 2 & 3. I may be in the minority on this one.) ⁣ ⁣ This album didn’t really take any longer to write/record than MVOTC. We just took more time on the front end to chill. I’ll admit I may have stretched out the mixing/mastering process (aka THE END) a little bit cuz spending half the day with my family & half the day at Ariel’s is my ideal life-rhythm & it’s painful to say goodbye to that rhythm.⁣ ⁣ Many of you have been hungry for information and we’ve given you very little. I don’t like talking abt a project while in the middle of making it. I usually regret everything I say cuz it turns out to be wrong (so disregard anything I may have said in the past 5 years.) I thought abt making a recording diary to tide over the people leaving intense comments but…to me, the album IS the recording diary…man.⁣ ⁣ It’s called “FOTB” (well those are the initials – that’s a VW tradition) and it’s 18 songs. Picked the name a few years ago. At some point early on, the album drifted from the Mitsubishi Macchiato aesthetic. It was a helpful guiding principle tho. Working titles are important too.⁣ ⁣ It’s a lot of songs but they all belong there. (If you disagree, you can always say it was 6 songs too long & make a lil 12-song playlist version of it.) At first, I wanted to make two 23-song albums on some human chromosome shit but then 23&me started doing Spotify playlists and I don’t know…felt we’d been scooped.⁣ ⁣ Is it a double album? The vinyl will be double so…yes? It’s about 59 minutes long. We can talk more abt that later – if u care. To me, it’s just FOTB.⁣ ⁣ Anyway, we’re gonna start releasing music next week. After all that waiting, you should have the general schedule:⁣ ⁣ -There will be three 2-song drops every month until the record is out. 1. hh/2021 2. s/bb 3. tl/uw. (plans can change that’s the plan)⁣ ⁣ Thank you for ur patience,⁣ Ezra   A post shared by Ezra Koenig (@arze) on Jan 17, 2019 at 1:05pm PST

Mad Cool Festival is a huge Pop, Rock and Alternative music festival happening from the 11-13 July 2019, in Madrid, Spain. Despite only being founded in 2016, it is already one of Europe’s hottest, most eagerly anticipated events. The festival has already brought bona-fide rock megastars to the centre of Europe over the course of only 2 years. Next years event looks set to be even hotter, with the exciting announcement of two exciting bands.

The 1975 who are set to play, will release their hotly anticipated third album ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ this month, before their follow-up ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ will be released next year, as part of their ‘Music For Cars’ era. The band who originate from Manchester, topped the UK Album Chart with their self entitled album The 1975 in 2013. In 2017 they won the highly acclaimed Brit Award for Best British Group.

They will be joined by The National, an American Rock Band heralding from Cincinnati, Ohio. Formed in 1999, The National achieved worldwide acclaim with their 2005 album entitled ‘Alligator’. In more recent years they have had hits with the album ‘Sleep Well’, which won the Grammy award for Best Alternative Music Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2017.

The National revealed they were ‘beyond the halfway point’ with progress on their next album, driven by a certain “looseness” and “an energy that’s evaded us in the past” said guitarist Bryce Dessner.

Next years Spanish Mad Cool Festival is expected to be even bigger than previous years, attracting over 80,000 fans per day, with greater investment in sound equipment and quality, and almost guaranteed sunshine. Next years event with such a mega-star line-up is not to be missed.

Other acts to be announced were British 1970s rock legends The Cure, with legendary tracks such as Friday Im in Love, and Just Like Heaven. Also confirmed were the 1990s post rock Scottish based band Mogwai. Formed in 1995 Mogwai had success both in the UK and USA, reaching no.23 in the UK Albums Chart with their album Rock Action in 2001, as well as reaching No.13 on the Billboard Independent Album Chart, with Happy Songs for Happy people in 2003.
Tickets are available for the event online at Mad Cool Festival 2019 11-13th July Espacio Mad Cool, Valdebebas-Ifema, Madrid, Spain

Other acts confirmed include; The Cure, Vampire Weekend, Mogwai, Bon Iver, Milk Teeth, Tash Sultana, The Snuts, Vetusta Morla, La Dispute, Alma, Rews, Carpenter Brut and many more to be confirmed.

During an appearance at Dorset’s End of the Road Festival, a fan shouted from the crowd about the progress of the new album. Frontman Ezra Keonig responded “When’s the new album coming out?” Keonig replied. “Oh, who cares? No, it’s done. We’ll talk about that later.”

Later on in the set, he explained “We don’t wanna make big deal about it, but this is our first time playing in the UK since Reading & Leeds 2014. We agreed to do [End of The Road 2018] a long time ago and, yeah, we hoped we’d be doing a victory lap with our new album. But, you know, this is what happens. Life goes on. We promise we’ll come back to the UK and we’ll play new songs. And they’re good – I promise.”

Keonig also took this opportunity to introduce the new members of the band, Brian Jones and Greta Morgan, who replaced the departing Rostam Batmanglij. The singer described Morgan as his “third cousin by marriage.”

Despite the progress of the album, and Keonig’s willingness to talk about it, no new songs were played during the band’s set at End of the Road, however, they did give five new songs their live debut at a Lollapalooza aftershow last month