The Shindig Festival will now go ahead as planned this weekend despite local Tories forcing a review of the event’s licence after Bob Vylan were confirmed as headliners.
During a session of Wiltshire Council’s licensing committee earlier this week, one local Tory councillor insisted that “hate speech and violence” are a key part of Bob Vylan's act, according to a report from the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Councillor Kevin Daley then cited Bob Vylan lyrics in which listeners are urged to “storm Downing Street”, “eat the rich” and “kill your landlord”. He then concluded, “unless they just stand on the stage and wave, how can this go ahead?”
But Shindig's legal representative Matthew Phipps responded by pointing out that seemingly violent lyrics aren’t usually an actual endorsement of violent acts. The song ‘Delilah’ is “about killing a woman”, he added, and yet “no one is suggesting banning Tom Jones”.
More importantly, he stressed that committee members have statutory responsibilities under the 2003 Licensing Act when considering the concerns expressed about this year’s Shindig line-up, explaining, “having a provocative and antagonistic performer is not illegal”.
In order to force changes to Shindig’s licence, the local Tories had to demonstrate that booking Bob Vylan created tangible “crime and disorder” or “public safety” concerns. Which means artists like Bob Vylan “saying things some people consider rude, or offensive, or controversial, is not why we are here today”.
Phipps also explained that “contractual measures” had been put in place to ensure Bob Vylan, and especially frontman Pascal Robinson, does not do anything on-stage this weekend that would breach the festival’s licensing conditions.
Although those measures were enough to reassure the committee that there was no need to revoke or revise Shindig’s event licence, meaning Bob Vylan’s headline set can go ahead as planned, they may also restrict what Robinson can say on stage.
Lib Dem committee member Ben Reed asked Phipps and co-director of the festival Simon Clarke what would happen if Robinson broke the rules. Phipps said measures might include sound and visuals being turned off and security intervening.
That prompted another Lib Dem committee member, Trevor Carbin, to ask “if they started chanting ‘death to the IDF’, you would pull the plug?” It was Robinson leading his audience in chants against the Israel Defense Forces that caused the most controversy during Bob Vylan’s televised Glastonbury set last year.
Clarke confirmed that, in those circumstances, the festival would pull the plug on Bob Vylan's set, adding, “if the crowd start chanting it, the band will stop their performance”.
That implies Robinson has agreed to refrain from leading that particular chant during his Shindig set, even though police investigations into him leading the same chant at Glastonbury and another show in London concluded there was no case for pursuing criminal charges in relation to that conduct.
Bob Vylan have been very much in the spotlight for their vocal on-stage support of Palestine and criticism of Israel ever since last year’s Glastonbury set. Those on-stage comments have been both commended and condemned by different groups, with many critics accusing Robinson of inciting antisemitism.
Anyone can request a review of a festival’s event licence under licensing laws and it was South Cotswolds Conservative Association that requested the review of Shindig’s licence. That resulted in a very last minute licence review just days before the 2026 edition of Shindig was due to get underway.
Laura Hall-Wilson, chairman of the association, spoke during this week’s hearing, insisting she was a champion of freedom of speech, while also defending “genuine criticism of the Israeli state”.
But she felt Robinson’s on-stage remarks did not fall into that category, adding that - in the context of rising antisemitism and the recent stabbing of two Jewish people in North London - licensing authorities needed to do everything they could to “dial down the rhetoric”.
However, with Phipps stressing the rules that the licensing committee must follow, committee members ultimately decided there were no grounds for revoking or revising the Shindig licence.
Welcoming that decision on behalf of the festival, Clarke said, “We have been facing censorship, stood our ground, and stand by our robust safety measures”.
Meanwhile a statement from Bob Vylan themselves reads, “We’re incredibly excited to be at Shindig this year, and we look forward to sharing the same love, truth and energy that our live shows are known for”.