Dutch venue 013 said the punk-rap band crossed a line by ’trivializing political murder.’ Front man Pascal Robinson-Foster denies he ever cheered Kirk’s murder.
English punk rap duo Bob Vylan have had their next major gig canceled in Holland after their front man celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death on stage.
On Sept. 10, Charlie Kirk, 31, a father of two and the most prominent American political figure to be assassinated in nearly six decades, was fatally shot in the neck while speaking at a Utah college campus.
Bob Vylan’s performance at Amsterdam’s Club Paradiso on Saturday went viral when the band’s front man ranted about Kirk.
Despite video of the outburst being shared on social media, front man Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, has denied he was celebrating Kirk’s death.
At the same concert, he also ranted about “fascists” and “zionists,” saying, “Get out there, go find them, and meet them in the streets.”
He also led a chant with the crowd of “Death, death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
The band members, who also led chants of “death to the IDF” at the world-famous English music festival Glastonbury in June, are the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation by Avon and Somerset Police.
013, which is the biggest pop venue in the Netherlands, posted a statement on Sunday saying the band had been canceled over “controversial remarks the artist made last night during a show at Paradiso in Amsterdam.”
It said that despite the controversy that arose after their performance at Glastonbury, 013 had at the time still decided to allow Bob Vylan to perform in Tilburg.
“However, the statements Bob Vylan made last night at Paradiso clearly cross a line for us. We strongly reject the trivializing of political murder and the call to ‘go out and find people in the streets,’” the venue said, adding that the new statements “go too far” and “no longer fall within the boundaries of what we can provide a stage for.”
Robinson-Foster claimed in a video response on X that he was not actually celebrating Kirk’s death.
“At no point during yesterday’s show was Charlie Kirk’s death celebrated,” he said.
By Owen Evans
