The Strokes Close Coachella Set with Video Denouncing U.S. Foreign Intervention [View all]
The Strokes returned to Coachella’s main stage on Saturday for a second performance. This time, however, they closed their set with a direct condemnation of U.S. interference in foreign governments over the years. While performing their 2016 song “Oblivius,” which features the lyric “What side you standing on?," the band displayed a video montage accusing the CIA of aiding and abetting forced regime change in Chile, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and more. The video concluded with videos of bombings in Gaza and Iran reportedly carried out by Israel and the U.S., respectively. Watch it below.
The montage named leaders like former Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, former Bolivian president Juan Torress, and former Chilean president Salvador Allende, pairing their photos with captions accusing the CIA of conspiring to overthrow them. At one point, an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared ahead of the caption “USGOVT found guilty of his murder in civil trial,” referencing a 1999 trial wherein a jury unanimously decided that there had been a government conspiracy to assassinate the civil rights leader. (In 2000, the Department of Justice reopened the murder case as a result of the trial, but said they found no evidence of a conspiracy.) The Strokes concluded their presentation with clips of human-made destruction in Iran and Gaza, at one point showing a large building exploding alongside the caption: “Last university standing in Gaza.”
https://pitchfork.com/news/the-strokes-close-coachella-set-with-video-denouncing-us-foreign-intervention/
ETA: I’m not at all a fan of Coachella or festivals in general, I came across this when I saw Jacobo Arbenz and Salvador Allende’s faces flash up on my Instagram feed. I find the criticism levied at musicians to avoid politics laughable.
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