IT'S never been Glastonbury's practice to judge the talent that has played the Somerset field since the first summer festival in 1970 on anything other than, well... their talent.
Organisers have earned the admiration of true music lovers everywhere as they stand fast in the face of huge pressure from the Labour and Conservative parties and right-wing media outlets to ban the Belfast-Derry rap trio Kneecap from their scheduled early Saturday evening gig on the West Holts stage.
While Glastonbury can hold its head up high, those hysterically and hypocritically calling for Kneecap to be axed have had nothing to say down through the years about the long list of performers whose crimes and antics make Kneecap's political messaging seem positively tame.
Waving a Hezbollah flag (allegedly)? How about waving Boris Johnson's severed head? Calling for Tory MPs to be killed (allegedly)? How about calling for Disneyland to be blown up?
Here's a short A-Z of just some of the acts who have played Glasto over the years without provoking a storm of controversy. And who have delighted fans with live performances that the BBC didn't agonise for weeks over broadcasting.
THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE The band’s 2023 tour of Australia was cancelled the morning after an on-stage brawl between band members during which singer Anton Newcombe hit guitarist Ryan Van Kriedt on the head with a guitar. The band are named after a 1978 messianic cult mass suicide in Guyana in which over 900 people died.
BURNA BOY Armed guards employed by the Nigerian Afrobeats performer shot and wounded two people in a nighclub in Lagos in 2022, after allegedly being instructed to open fire by Burna Boy. He has denied the claim as an investigation continues and he has also rejected an allegation that he offered money to the family of one of the shooting victims.
FAT WHITE FAMILY The South London rock band carried a banner reading ‘The Witch is Dead’ at a party in Brixton celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher. Their songs feature multiple references to drug use and one is called simply ‘Bomb Disneyland’.
GOAT GIRL The song ‘Burn the Stake’ includes the lyrics
Build a bonfire, build a bonfire,
Put the Tories on the top,
Put the DUP in the middle
And we’ll burn the f***ing lot.
GUNS N' ROSES The band’s problematic racist and homophobic history is perhaps best summed up by the 1988 track One in a Million, which includes the lines:
Police and n***ers, that’s right,
Get outta my way,
Don’t need to buy none of your gold chains today.
And
Immigrants and faggots,
They make no sense to me,
They come to our country
And think they can do as they please.
“I don’t regret doing it,”says guitarist Slash.
DOUBLE WHAMMY: Guns N' Roses have had a problematic past as far as racism and homophobia are concerned
IGGY POP The punk pioneer was one of a number of rock stars to have had sex with a 13-year-old and he even wrote a song about it in the song Look Away:
I slept with Sable when she was 13
Her parents were too rich to do anything
She rocked her way around LA
'Til a New York Doll carried her away.
Donald Trump admirer, the rocker Ted Nugent, wrote the song Jailbait about the same child.
JAY-Z The problem with the stadium rapper’s criminal record is choosing what to leave out. He pleaded guilty to stabbing his record producer, admitted to dealing drugs, shot his brother for stealing from him. Problem? Not at all.
THE LIBERTINES Frontman Pete Doherty was dragged off a stage in Munich in December after singing a Nazi song – the first stanza of Das Deutschlandlied. He did six months in jail for burglary.
NEIL YOUNG During the Aids crisis the Canadian rocker said in an interview: “You got to a supermarket and you see a faggot behind the fucking cash register, you don’t want them to handle your potatoes.”
RED HOT CHILLI PEPPERS Band lead singer Anthony Kiedis is a walking rap sheet. He’s been found guilty of sexual battery and indecent exposure and admitted in his autobiography to having had sex with underage girls as young as 14.
RAP SHEET: Red Hot Chilli Peppers front man Anthony Kiedis's, ah, colourful past hasn't brought him to the attention of Tory Britain
SLOWTHAI The English rapper walked on to the stage at an awards ceremony carrying an effigy of the severed head of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, shouting “F**k Boris Johnson, f**k everything, there’s nothing great about Britain.”
STONE ROSES Singer Ian Brown served just eight weeks of a four-month sentence imposed on him for an air rage incident during which he threatened to chop the hands off a stewardess and tried to gain access to the flight deck.
STORMZY In a furious performance at the 2018 Brit Awards, the grime artist tore into Tory PM Theresa May over the Grenfell blaze. “You got the cheek to call savages,” he thundered. “You should do some jail time. You should pay some damage. We should burn your house down…”
PASSIONATE: In an angry Grenfell outburst, Stormzy said of the British PM, "We should burn your house down"
THE WHO The legendary British rockers have twice appeared at Glastonbury since guitarist Pete Townshend admitted to using his credit card to access internet child porn. The Who’s 2007 appearance took place while Townshend was still on the sex offenders’ register.
THE ZUTONS After a man made a remark about the fur collar on a coat worn by the girlfriend of Zutons front man Dave McCabe outside a club in Liverpool in 2010, McCabe headbutted the man, smashing his nose. He was ordered to do community work and pay compensation to the victim.
