A Primal Scream performance due to take place as part of a festival in Stoke On Trent next summer has been cancelled following criticism of video images the band displayed during a show at London’s Roundhouse last week.
The video, shown as the band performed their song ‘Swastika Eyes’, featured images of various political leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the star of David combined with a swastika covering their eyes. The images were accompanied by various slogans, including “stop genocide” and “free Palestine”, as well as “our government is complicit”.
Primal Scream have since defended their use of the footage, which has been labelled antisemitic by critics, insisting that the film was a “piece of art”. But The Roundhouse issued an apology, and organisers of the Trentham Live festival have now announced they are axing the band from their 2026 line-up.
Organisers of the Stoke festival said that “the graphics used at a recent Primal Scream concert do not align with our values”, and therefore they have “decided to cancel their performance at Trentham Live 2026”.
Among those to criticise Primal Scream’s video was the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which said: “the Nazi swastika represents the ideology that inspired people to industrially slaughter six million innocent Jewish men, women and children by bullet, gas and any other means available”.
Therefore, “to visually combine that with the star of David - the pre-eminent symbol of Judaism - is absolutely sickening and totally inexcusable”.
The Roundhouse issued its own statement saying that it “deeply regretted” that “these highly offensive images” were presented on its stage, adding, “we unequivocally apologise to anyone who attended the gig and to the wider Jewish community”.
Adding that the venue had not been made aware of the video prior to the band’s performance, it said that the imagery displayed “stands against all of our values”.
However, in an Instagram post on Friday, Primal Scream defended their use of the video. They wrote, “The film is a piece of art - it clearly draws from history to question where the actions of current world governments sit in that context”.
“It is meant to provoke debate, not hate”, they continued, adding, “in a free, pluralistic and liberal society, freedom of expression is a right which we choose to exercise”.