Radiohead’s Thom Yorke walks off stage after being heckled by pro-Palestinian protester
By Amarachi Orie, CNN
(CNN) — Radiohead singer Thom Yorke took off his guitar and left the stage during his solo concert in Melbourne, Australia, on Wednesday after being heckled by a pro-Palestinian protester.
In video footage circulating on social media, a concert-goer can be heard shouting toward the stage at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl about the rising death toll in Gaza and “the Israeli genocide of Gaza.”
The protester asks Yorke, “How could you be silent” in the face of the conflict.
Yorke replies by saying, “Come up here and say that. Right here. Come on. Come up on the f**king stage and say what you want to say.”
Pointing at the heckler, he continued: “Don’t stand there like a coward. Come here and say it.”
“Come on. You want to piss on everybody’s night? Come on,” Yorke adds, before saying, “OK, you do. See you later then.”
Yorke then left the stage, before later returning to perform Radiohead’s 1997 hit “Karma Police,” according to social media posts.
CNN has contacted Arts Centre Melbourne, which owns the venue, for comment.
Radiohead has previously come under scrutiny for the band’s decision to perform in Tel Aviv. The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) organization urged Radiohead in 2017 to boycott Israel over its conduct in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
At the time, the Radiohead Fans for Palestine wrote open letters urging the British rock band not to perform there, saying, “Palestinians routinely have their homes destroyed and their land taken away. They are imprisoned, brutalised and killed.”
The BDS organization also called on the band to cancel the concert with former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters and British film director Ken Loach, urging Yorke to reconsider his stance.
However, the band rejected the call, with Yorke saying, “Playing in a country is not the same as endorsing its government” and music is about “crossing borders, not building them.”
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