During his Australian solo tour, Thom Yorke, the singer of Radiohead, temporarily left the stage following a confrontation with an audience member who heckled him over fatalities in Gaza.
Online footage from Wednesday’s Melbourne performance shows a man in the audience yelling at Yorke. His plea on the artist to “condemn the Israeli genocide of Gaza” is not audible in its entirety.
The heckler is told by Yorke to “hop up on stage” in order to deliver his thoughts.
“Come here and say it instead of standing there like a coward. Do you wish to ruin everyone’s evening? Yorke goes on, “Okay, you do it, see you later,” before taking off his guitar and ending his performance.
The heckler repeated his demand and added, “How many dead children will it take?” before he left.
After some audience members were heard jeering the disruption, Yorke quickly returned to applause by playing the Radiohead song Karma Police.
Attending a concert According to Elly Brus, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl audience “did not have support” for the demonstrator.
Security guards escorted him off. She told the BBC that he then carried on interacting with individuals outside the event.
In reaction to Hamas’ historic onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which claimed around 1,200 lives and resulted in the capture of 251 others, Israel began a mission to eradicate the organization.
Since then, Gaza’s health ministry, which is managed by Hamas, has reported that over 43,160 people have died there, including thousands of women and children.
Accusations of violating the laws of war are denied by both parties.
Due to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, Radiohead has previously been under pressure to postpone performances there and participate in a cultural boycott of the nation.
“Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” Yorke said in response to the demand.
Yorke defended the choice to proceed with a planned concert in Tel Aviv in a statement in 2017. “We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others,” the statement read.
“We still play in America, but we don’t support [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu any more than we do Trump. At the time, he said, “Music, art, and academia are about crossing borders, not building them.”
Pro-Palestinian activists also charged Yorke’s bandmate Jonny Greenwood with “artwashing” earlier this year after he performed in Tel Aviv with Israeli-Arabic artist Dudu Tassa.
“No art is as ‘important’ as stopping all the death and suffering around us,” Greenwood wrote in an X press release.
“But… silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn’t seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict.”
