Kentish Town, North London

“Who knew of Bob Vylan before the 28th of June?” asked the frontman of the punk-rap duo, addressing the audience at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town last night. Only the most frenetic of the mosh-pitters raised their hands. “And how many of you found out about Bob Vylan after our Glastonbury set?” This time, the roar was unanimous. It was Glasto that made them famous — and it showed in last night’s raucous homecoming.

So far, two of this tour’s concerts have been cancelled. Ahead of last night’s gig, 1,000 people wrote to the local council leader and over 3,800 to Prime Minister Keir Starmer demanding the event be called off. Photographs of a sign near the venue declaring it a “Zionist Free Zone” circulated on social media, prompting Stop the Hate, a Jewish-led group campaigning against antisemitism, to organise a protest. They met with counter-protesters from the Palestine Coalition at around 18:30, with the Met placing the two groups on opposite sides of the street.

In the rain, Palestine Coalition demonstrators banged tablas, faces hidden behind Covid masks and keffiyehs. One woman said she was there because Bob Vylan isn’t “inherently antisemitic”, while a middle-aged man refused to speak to me, insisting I was a “Zionist”. “Zionists,” he shouted, “are known for pretending they’re journalists, extracting statements, and taking them to the police.”

Until June this year, Bob Vylan were just a little-known partnership whose songs contained BLM-style potshots at dead prime ministers and the late Queen. “Let’s go dig up Maggie’s grave and ask her where the milk went” is one line from “GDP”, while “England’s Ending” opens with a call to “get the fucking dinosaurs out / Yeah, and kill the fucking Queen.”

But it was only when the BBC televised their Glastonbury set, in which singer Bobby Vylan (real name: Pascal Robinson-Foster) encouraged his crowd to sing “Death, death, to the IDF”, that they received a wider audience. Starmer called this “hate speech”, and only yesterday Robinson-Foster was interviewed by the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. He told Louis Theroux during a podcast appearance last month that he would “do it again”. In Kentish Town yesterday evening, he did.

Early in the show, a hush rippled through the crowd. It was a strange mix: hip young uni students, activists, and a few goths; there were also some old, bedraggled, pot-bellied punks and then several affluent-looking North London mums and dads, who awkwardly shimmied at the back with a libidinous thrill. Then one man, standing near the bar, shouted “Death, death” and the crowd joined in: “Death, death, to the IDF.” Onstage, Robinson-Foster strutted around quietly, unable to join in because of “ongoing criminal trials”. Later, in a moment of overexcitement, he blurted it out after the crowd broke into another rendition.

Bob Vylan gigs, Robinson-Foster announced, are “equal parts talking, equal parts music”. Naturally, there’s the Palestine stuff. But beyond that, he told attendees, we live on a “wretched piece of land” whose “institutions” are controlled by “the Government”, against which we must take direct action. Watch out, there are Right-wing journalists in the room tonight (boo). But they weren’t given press tickets (cheer). I tucked my notepad into my pocket as eyes swivelled towards me.

Whenever a song or speech veered into politics, a pale and stout young man pumped his middle finger ecstatically into the sky. “Let every Right-wing fascist skunk out there know that we will not let them take this country from us,” Robinson said before launching into one of his closing songs, which went: “Say you want your country back; shut the fuck up.” The man beside me raised his middle finger one last time. There was so much sound and fury here, signifying nothing. “We the people must rise up,” they said, but would anyone here do that?

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Cosmo Adair is a writer living in London.

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