Bob Vylan have announced that they will be headlining Burn It Down Festival this year as a “treat” for those who were upset about them playing at Boardmasters.
The band will be headlining the event in Torquay on Thursday August 28, joining other names on the bill including Static Dress, Glare, Hyphen, Guilt Trip, Cancer Bats and Karen Dio.
The festival takes place close to Boardmasters 2025, which kicks off in Cornwall this month also, and also features the rap punk duo on the bill.
Bob Vylan’s slot at the latter has become marred by controversy in recent weeks, with hundreds calling for them to be dropped from the line-up following their controversial Glastonbury comments.
While on stage at Worthy Farm, Bobby Vylan made headlines for leading provocative chants of “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF”. The group have since clarified that that they “are not for the death of Jews or Arabs or any other race or group”.
It also led to them being dropped as Gogol Bordello’s support, axed as headliners from Manchester’s Radar festival, and having the police investigating their set to decide whether any offences have been made.
Politicians and lobby groups have cried their eyes out about us playing a festival this week in the same area, so we figured what better way to treat them than by coming back a couple weeks later to headline one.
Tickets: https://t.co/ehRl9VQirS pic.twitter.com/7VPSYVxbJf— Bob Vylan (@BobbyVylan) August 7, 2025
Announcing news of their new headline slot at Burn It Down, the duo said: “Politicians and lobby groups have cried their eyes out about us playing a festival this week in the same area, so we figured what better way to treat them than by coming back a couple weeks later to headline one.”
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The festival takes place just weeks after Boardmasters, which runs from August 8-10. Organisers at Boardmasters have kept the group on the bill, and shared that it does not “tolerate hate speech” or “incitement to violence”.
Many artists have chimed in on Bob Vylan’s controversy, with Massive Attack urging the media to instead “redirect their considerable news resource to reporting the truth of what is happening, daily, to the people of Gaza”, and Wolf Alice calling the media outrage at Bob Vylan “a distraction technique”.
Bands also boycotted Radar festival in solidarity with Bob Vylan, with Hero In Error claiming that the festival “have been made scapegoats for the bigger issue”.
Chuck D of Public Enemy also came out in support of the band, explaining: “When people say death to a country, they’re not saying death to a people. They’re saying death to imperialism, death to colonialism.
However, Blur‘s Damon Albarn called the set “one of the most spectacular misfires I’ve seen in my life.”
In response, Bob Vylan fired back at Albarn calling him an “out of touch ’90’s musician” and affirming: “Your response should probably resemble something to the effect of: ‘Over 58k Palestinians killed since Oct 7th 2023. Over 700 killed while attempting to get aid. Over 1400 medical workers killed since Oct 7th.
“‘Genocide is being live streamed for all to see and the UK is not simply allowing it to continue but facilitating it, along with the United States. Why are we talking about a punk band?’ End.”
Among those condemning the band for their on stage comments is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), who asked the ministers of public safety and immigration to bar them from entering Canada, saying they have violated “Canadian hate speech laws” and contradicted “our core values.”
Last month, the group criticised politicians and mainstream media for changing their stance on Gaza after they were “villainised” for speaking out.
British mainstream press and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the chants at Glasto “appalling”, but then the PM issued a statement on July 24 and said the “suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza” is “unspeakable and indefensible” – a move which some perceived as a u-turn to his original stance.
The Daily Express then featured a front page with an image of a starving one-year-old child in Gaza, accompanied by the headline “for pity’s sake stop this now”.
“Watching politicians and mainstream media suddenly change their rhetoric on the genocide makes me feel like I’ve truly gone crazy,” said Bobby Vylan online. “Can someone please confirm that a few weeks ago they villainised us on the front pages for being against this while they were very much pro-genocide?”
