Live Update arrow right icon From the Liveblog of Sunday, June 30, 2024

At Glastonbury festival, Dua Lipa gets ‘Glasto for Palestine’ flag in camera shot, Coldplay ‘sends love’ to Israel

By AFP and ToI Staff 30 June 2024, 4:56 pm 6 Edit

The Glastonbury music festival has taken on the vibe of a demonstration this year, with dozens of Palestinian flags and banners calling for a ceasefire in the ongoing Gaza war hung across the sprawling site in southwest England and performers getting political.

British-Albanian pop sensation Dua Lipa, who has been accused in the past of being antisemitic for her support of Palestinians, walks into the audience during her performance, apparently to get a ‘Glasto for Palestine’ flag in the camera shot.

Dua Lipa, who played at the event in 2017, is headlining for the first time.

However, posts on social media point out that there are also LGBTQ rainbow flags with Stars of David in the crowd, along with flags in memory of the Supernova music festival, where Hamas-led terrorists murdered some 360 people and kidnapped 40 to Gaza on October 7.

The Daily Mail reports that Welsh singer Charlotte Church also jumps on the political bandwagon during her performance, singing “free Palestine” with the audience during an improvised number, while wearing a keffiyeh scarf.

During Coldplay’s show yesterday, lead singer Chris Martin asks the audience to “send love out into the world,” suggesting, “you can send it to your grandma, you can send it to Israel, you can send it to Palestine, you can send it to Myanmar, you can send it to Ukraine, you can send it to peaceful Russians.”

Coldplay’s appearance this year made the band the first act to headline Glastonbury five times.

In a surprise cameo appearance, Blur frontman Damon Albarn also brings up the war in Gaza, asking the audience to roaring applause, “Are you pro-Palestine? Do you feel that’s an unfair war?”

He then encourages festival-goers to vote in the upcoming UK elections, before moving on to the looming US presidential elections over the pond, quipping, “Maybe it’s time stopped putting octogenarians in control of the whole world.”

Also at the festival over the weekend, rock band Idles leads the crowd in chanting “fuck the king,” according to The Daily Mail.

This year’s three main headliners Dua Lipa, Coldplay, and SZA are joined by country star Shania Twain, Nigerian rapper Burna Boy and 1980s star Cyndi Lauper.

Alongside around 3,000 performances set to take place across some 80 stages, the festival also features night-long parties, art installations and lively parades.

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