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Organizers were reportedly blindsided by the hip-hop trio’s “Fuck Israel” display – but one advocacy group says it sounded the alarm days in advance
Coachella organizers were warned in advance by multiple people that the Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap would take an aggressive anti-Israel stance when they were booked at the festival but failed to act, according to music industry insiders who spoke to TheWrap after “Fuck Israel” messages and chanting dominated the group’s act last weekend.
“Goldenvoice and AEG are claiming they were blindsided by the band and had no clue,” Ari Ingel, executive director of pro-Israel entertainment nonprofit Creative Community for Peace, told The Wrap on Tuesday. “This is a lie. They knew, and they refused to act.”
The concert organizer Goldenvoice and its owner AEG did not return multiple attempts by TheWrap to respond.
Kneecap kicked up a “Free Palestine” chant during the festival’s second weekend along with shouts of “Fuck Israel” and other antisemitic messaging projected onstage, to raucous chanting by the crowd. Festival organizers have yet to comment on the display, but reportedly said privately that they were “blindsided.”
The naked antisemitism of the moment at a music festival – with echoes of the Nova Music Festival massacre by Hamas still ringing in the air – has divided the music industry and roiled Jewish advocacy groups.
Ingel said he emailed Goldenvoice and AEG executives on April 13 and again April 15, according to an internal communication to his nonprofit’s advisory board obtained by TheWrap. Emails were sent to Goldenvoice CEO and president Paul Tollett, AEG/Goldenvoice COO Melissa Ormond and Goldenvoice owner and COO Jay Marciano, alerting them that the political provocateurs from West Belfast would bring what it called their strident pro-Hezbollah and pro-Hamas messages to the festival stage.
“You had a band here that is an extremist band that supports Hezbollah and Hamas that whipped this crowd of thousands into an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, antisemitic frenzy at a music festival that could have led to who knows what,” Ingel told TheWrap. “Say there was some young kid with a Star of David on his neck. Could that kid have gotten beat up and lynched?”
Some uncensored messaging to Coachella 🤝🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/WbHZBrCZl5— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) April 19, 2025
A representative for Kneecap did not respond to TheWrap’s outreach. The band has been known to support the ideology of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah in the past, including the attacks of October 7, 2023.
In addition to his work at CCFP, Ingel is an entertainment attorney and music manager. Other music industry insiders were similarly critical of AEG and Goldenvoice.
A veteran music manager who didn’t want to be identified told TheWrap: “It was a bad f—king booking. AEG didn’t have to be geniuses to know if you book this group they’ll support Hamas. If you book Pussy Riot you should expect them to say something critical of Putin.”
Yet another music industry insider said they were in touch with AEG ahead of the festival, and also warned them about Kneecap: “We said this is going to be a disaster. They’ll do something crazy – and of course they did. Maybe he [Tollett] was naïve, but they f–ked up.”
The performance sent shockwaves through Jewish advocacy groups, including the Brigade, a community of PR executives fighting against antisemitism in entertainment.
“It is one thing for artists to use their stages to protest war and express free speech, but quite another to promote hate – and at Coachella, which is billed as a haven for inclusivity and peace,” the group said in an exclusive statement to TheWrap. “Perhaps AEG/Goldenvoice have already forgotten Nova, the site of the largest music festival massacre. And your silence AEG, it’s almost as triggering as the terror fueled display you enabled. Many in the audience and beyond cannot afford the luxury of forgetting.”
The band’s live feed was cut during the first weekend due to extreme remarks about Margaret Thatcher and offensive on-screen anti-Israel statements. After that, Ingel said he and CCFP colleagues reached out again, laying out “who this band was, what they stood for, what they were planning” and urged the higher ups to cancel their performance or ensure that it would not turn into a spectacle for hate and violent speech. They received no response, he said.
Surprisingly, Tollett, one of the co-founders of Coachella, recently visited a Los Angeles exhibit memorializing Nova, the trance music festival held in southern Israel that was attacked on Oct. 7, 2023 by Hamas militants. An estimated 380 attendees – mostly young people who had gathered to dance – were slaughtered. The meeting was said to be a poignant moment, as Tollett made the connection between the Hamas terror attack and his own music gathering.
Nova issued a statement reacting to the Kneecap performance – as well as the ongoing silence from Coachella’s leaders:
“When our exhibit first came to Los Angeles, the founder of Coachella himself, Paul Tollett, was one of our first visitors. He did not know our story, but after witnessing, he saw his own humanity and his own festival within ours. He sat with us, cried with us, and advocated for us. Today we will do the same for him. Coachella like Nova is a place of love.”
The Nova exhibit was a project of superstar producer and manager Scooter Braun, who defended Tollett, a personal friend, writing Sunday in an Instagram post: “Let’s not lose sight of who this man is, and let us stand with him in this moment when a group, without his knowing, took advantage of his festival and created hate in a place that’s filled with love.”
Ingel called Braun’s post out-of-bounds.
“While I appreciate Scooter’s sentiment and sticking up for his friend — sadly, and unfortunately — it’s misguided,” Ingel said. “Paul and Jay Marciano — along with Melissa — were all briefed by me and CCFP about who Kneecap was, what they stood for, their affinity for terrorist groups and their plans to do a stunt like this. Those warnings were totally ignored. Silence.”
Kneecap took the stage Saturday as the words “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people” appeared above them. Other messages included “Fuck Israel” and “Free Palestine.” Later in the set, rapper and singer Mo Chara, known for his flow between Irish and English languages, led the crowd in a “Free Palestine” chant.
There were other warnings of trouble ahead, including during Kneecap’s first-weekend performance. The Times of Israel reported that the band’s livestream was cut off over its messaging – including a screed against the late Margaret Thatcher. After posting on X that it wouldn’t happen again, Kneecap made sure to capture and post images and video of last weekend’s performance.
Mo chara speaking to thousands of Americans at coachella.
The young people of America don’t support genocide, get out on the streets and show this to that cunt Trump. 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/fExyAn7GA6
— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) April 19, 2025
“Coachella understood that from weekend one – and still allowed it for weekend two,” Ingel said. “The only reason I can come up with is that they were scared of the backlash they may face from the anti-Israel community, and they were more scared of that than they were scared of what the pro-Israel and Jewish communities would think.”
It wasn’t clear whether any of Saturday’s performance came through Coachella’s livestream, but leftist social media influencer Hasan Piker joined the band onstage and streamed to his own Twitch channel with nearly 3 million followers. The band also posted several of its most strident on-stage messages on its X account.
Ingel said his nonprofit continues to track Kneecap as they prepare for summer tour season, with nearly two-dozen dates booked in the U.S. and beyond.
Our October US/Canada tour will see us joined by the brilliant Bricknasty on support for all shows 🔥
Only two dates with a handful of tickets left pic.twitter.com/KI1wbT7c0z
— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) April 22, 2025
Sharon Waxman and Tess Patton contributed to reporting of this story.
Cover Photo: London, United Kingdom – December 8, 2024: Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh of Kneecap attend the 27th British Independent Film Awards at The Roundhouse in London.