At Reading Festival 2025, artists from Amyl & The Sniffers to Hozier used their sets to speak out on Palestine, politics, and free speech.
Amyl & The Sniffers made headlines at Reading Festival 2025 after using their stage time to speak out about global issues.
According to NME, Between songs, frontwoman Amy Taylor didn’t hold back, telling the crowd: “I want to say f** J.K. Rowling, and I want to say my heart is with the people in Palestine… any kind of action is some kind of action. What else can I say? I guess f*** Trump!”*
The Aussie punk band weren’t the only ones using the festival stage as a platform for activism. Enter Shikari frontman Rou Reynolds gave a fiery speech about the war in Gaza, describing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as decades of “intimidation, humiliation, subjugation.”
He highlighted the destruction in Gaza, calling it “the firepower equivalent of six Hiroshima atomic bombs dropped in the last two years.”
Elsewhere, Hozier struck a powerful chord during his set, calling for a free Palestine and stressing the importance of self-determination and equality. “Safety and security for everybody in the Middle East means seeing a Palestine that’s free from occupation,” he told fans.
Bring Me The Horizon closed their five-star-reviewed set by waving Palestinian flags during their track “Throne,” while fans roared in solidarity.
The activism at Reading comes just as controversy hit Victorious Festival in Portsmouth. Irish band The Mary Wallopers had their sound cut mid-song after displaying a Palestinian flag on stage. Festival organizers later claimed it was due to a “discriminatory chant,” but the band shared video evidence showing a crew member removing their flag and ordering them to stop playing until it was taken down.
Fans booed, and the band led a chant of “Free, Free Palestine.”
On Instagram, The Mary Wallopers called out the festival’s statement as “misleading” and pointed to escalating violence in Gaza, including the declaration of famine and dozens of lives lost in recent attacks.
With multiple artists now speaking out, this year’s Reading Festival proved that music isn’t just about entertainment — it’s also a stage for resistance, solidarity, and unfiltered truth.
