Nick Cave Disagrees With Great Escape Boycott

Nick Cave has offered advice to an artist who asked if they should perform at or boycott the UK music showcase event The Great Escape.

As NME reports, half of the line-up is boycotting The Great Escape, demanding that the event drops its Barclays bank sponsorship in solidarity with Palestine.

Barclays has recently faced controversy for its financial involvement in companies that supply arms to Israel, with the artists unwilling to support the festival during the ongoing Israel-Gaza war. The boycott is reminiscent of SXSW earlier when artists protested against the music conference event’s alleged connections to the defence industry partnerships supplying weapons to Israel Defence Forces.

Cave was recently contacted on his Red Hand Files Q&A website by an artist who says they’re booked to play at The Great Escape festival.

The artist brought up the boycott against Barclays and artists dropping off the event, writing: “I am a musician who has been booked to play The Great Escape festival, which, as you may have heard, a number of artists are boycotting due to the sponsorship of Barclays. Who, in a non-linear fashion, are profiting from the horror that is occurring in Palestine.”

The artist wrote that they do not support the “genocide” of Palestinian people and hopes that the rest of the world feels the same.

“But as an artist already existing in a very toxic industry, the best many of us can hope for is a few scraps—the glimmer of an opportunity, a gig, anything to help us get our music out into the world and, in turn, make it a better place with the love we promote in our art,” the artist added, commenting on the music industry’s expectations to follow trends on TikTok and labels’ caring about “metrics.”

The artist continued to say that they feel “as if I am to be judged by my peers and by fans” if they don’t cancel their Great Escape performance, “yet my heart tells me that this is ill-advised. I don’t want to be bullied into following a trend, yet I worry my silence makes me look complicit.

“Integrity is all we have, so how are we expected to navigate through this world when all commercialism and corporate sponsorship comes from darkness?” the artist asked.

Bringing up other UK festivals sponsored by Barclays, including Reading & Leeds and Latitude, the artist concluded, “It’s a huge expectation on struggling musicians who will be replaced by one of a thousand other hungry musicians if they decide to boycott. What would you do?”

Cave, known for his typically wordy responses, left the simple answer: “Play. Love, Nick.”

In 2017, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds were criticised for performing in Tel Aviv despite the BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) movement pressuring the band to drop the tour dates.

Cave called the movement “cowardly and shameful” and defended his stance in playing in Israel as a “principled stand against those who wish to bully, shame and silence musicians.”

He continued, “I do not support the current government in Israel, yet do not accept that my decision to play in the country is any kind of tacit support for that government’s policies.”