“Festivals and arenas have become disputed spaces, but not because (some) artists dare to express political opinions”.
Thus began the message launched by the Massive Attack on Instagram about the festivals in 2025. The part on the artists who dare express political opinions can only make what happened to the Kneecap, which the same massive tried to defend from attempts to cancel from the festivals after expressing themselves to the coachella on Israel and Palestine.
However, the message of the English group is wider and concerns the intertwining between show and economic interests behind the festivals. It is a theme that especially in England is being discussed after the defections of some artists who have preferred not to perform in sponsored or financed events and investment groups with interests in the war industry, and beyond. This is the case, to make a couple of examples, of the link between Download Festival and Barclays, which has financial interests in the weapons used by the Israeli army, or of the relationships of the Spanish Sónar with private equity kkr companies.
Accompanied by a video built as an advertising message from the festivals sponsors, with a assembly of images of managers, environmental disasters and war and logos of Kkr, Barclays, Blackrock, Allianz, Airbnb and others, the text of the massive continues: “Private capital (read: public inequality) and corporate finance must have everything: from the water you drink to the spaces in which you are looking for evasion. Behind the Vip windows, hidden on the back, there are the exploitation of workers for the benefit of those who make money with fossil fuels and the war industry “.
Conclusion: “Do not dance at the rhythm of their music”, an idiomatic expression that means “not to do what they tell you”.
