Word has reached DiS that Bloc Party (pictured) vocalist Kele Okereke was subjected to a racist attack at the weekend, by former Sex Pistols screamer John 'Johnny Rotten' Lydon and members of the one-time punk hero's entourage.
Okereke was attacked at the Summercase Festival in Barcelona on Saturday night; he was left shaken and with bruising to his face, cuts on his face and body, and a burst lip.
The attack, according to reports, was unprovoked. A witness commented that Lydon and company were at the festival "acting like a gang of racist thugs".
Trouble flared when Okereke asked Lydon backstage at the festival if he'd ever consider reforming Public Image Ltd, as the Bloc Party singer is a big fan of the seminal post-punk outfit fronted by Lydon. The former I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here contestant grew aggressive, with his party suggesting that Okereke had a "black attitude", and that was a problem in some way.
The story goes that then Okereke was punched and kicked by Lydon's crew, albeit not Lydon himself, while Ricky Wilson of Kaiser Chiefs and Yannis Philippakis of Foals attempted to fend off the attackers. Security broke up the fight and Spanish police were duly informed. Okereke made a statement to UK police once home.
Over 50 people witnessed the Barcelona attack - alongside members of Foals and Kaiser Chiefs were Mystery Jets, Neon Neon and Har Mar Superstar, all of whom saw what unfolded. Of the attack, Okereke has stated:
"It's not an issue of the physical assault, even though it was an unprovoked attack. It is the fact that race was brought into the matter so readily. Someone as respected and as intelligent as Lydon should know better than to bring race into the equation, or socialise with and encourage those who hold such narrow-minded attitudes. I am disappointed that someone I held with such high regard turns out to be such a bigot."
DrownedinSound can not convey accurately just how disgusted we are by this unbelievable incident in words without completely destroying our swear filter. Suffice to say that if you see John Lydon and 'crew' any time soon, give him a piece of your mind on our behalf. We wish Kele a speedy recovery from his injuries.
A review of Summercase will appear on DiS soon
You guys have a swear filter?
Fuck me, that's shit.
Not here, clearly.
So stop it, you.
Bloody hell.
That's unbelievable!
Excellent
"Hey why don't you reform Public Image because this lot are shite" It wasn't because he was black it was because he thought he was clever enough to get away with making a smart arse insult to someone who's boots he isn't good enough to lick and he got a well deserved caning. It isn't the first time the bloc party singer's blackitude made the news.
YOU. FUCKING. PRICK.
'Blackitude'? Did you make that up? How very clever of you. Not really a surprise that your supporting this demented old twat.
COCK
ALERT.
A "well deserved caning"?
You idiot.
Go to your room.
Lydon's got shit for brains
Don't bother volleying words at the prick, throw a shit pie at him instead. What a wanker....
I thought the swear filter was only on the front page.
SHIT
clearly.
I imagine all this
happening in a big marquee.
A white guy spoke back to a black guy evryone!
Outrageous! The ignorant and/or morally bereft white guy always started it in these situations and he will make a grovelling apology about how he isn't racist and could never make a black person feel uncomfortable intentionally.
SERIOUSLY.
I'd shut up if I was you. Haven't you got a UKIP party broadcast to wank over?
WHAT THE FUCK?!
Part of me wishes Mystery Jets suddenly turned into ninjas
and there was a massive indie 'big-budget hollywood epic style' fight.
That would be AWESOME.
"Mathleti-KICKS" "I predict a rio-UPPERCUT"
Stop
being a dreadful loser.
I can't, it's too much fun.
:)
...
John Lydon? Intelligent? When did that happen?
:(
I was so sad and cross to read this. Lydon and co. are such a bunch of twats. What a horrible thing to read, I can't convey how angry this has made me!
I don't want to pass judgement on Lyndon or Kele
As I know neither, I couldn't say how they act, but this sounds like an appauling thing to happen.
But the idea of the indie community stepping up to defend one of their own like sown sort of pack of zebras is so adoreable it makes me squee. Yannis seems a bit mental, I imagine he'd be good at defence. And Ricky's from Leeds, so you know he can kick ass. I wish Harmar got involved, you know he could pull out some moves. And the mystery jets could probably confuse the opponents to thinking they've travelled back into the 80s.
I see new reality TV show "IndieWars" - indie superstars battle it out to win the ultimate prize. Hosted by Simon Amstell and Alexa Chung
i love how it had to be the two lead singers of those bands getting involved
just spoken to John Lydon/PIL's former manager
and he was saying that there is some guy who now works for Lydon who is a complete thug. I'd imagine this guy is likely to have employed a rabble of idiots who, as you can imagine, are glorified builders who misunderstood the tabloid-version of the 'punk ideal'. I got the impression, from his former manager, that he's stunned that Lydon himself would ever act like this.
Aye.
It's worth noting that despite connotations of the press release this story is based on, at no point is it implicitly implied that Lydon himself physically assaulted Okereke. What's clear is that he didn't take kindly to the Bloc Party man's line of questioning, and obviously did not prevent the incident from happening. Which is, given his position, just as bad as getting involved himself.
The 'black attitude' comment
Is also a brush to tar him with.
Also, 50 witnesses and only 2 jumped in to help? I hope thats been inncaurately reported...
That was his entourage and not Lydon either
although obviously totally out of order. Sounds like he's surrounded by a bunch of cunts.
and
what's wrong with builders?? Buildist!
Sad old man...
Lydon's clearly way out his depth nowadays. The, uneasy, posturing and pouting he does now is pure pantomine.
He's so far away from what made him do it in the first place (geographically and emotionally) that it's just acting.
I can believe that he said this with zero understanding or appreciation of how idiotic and arrogant it shows him to be and sadly he'll prob stand up to accusations of racism with some typically aggressive bullshit about how he's incapable of it or something similar.
"glorified builders"
shut the fuck up. theyre thugs, stop drawing your own connections.
Too Right
Well spotted slur there.
Lol @ "glorified builders"
The upper-middle class Daily Mail reader has spoken!
I didn't like that either.
OM MY GOD.
.
Blimey!
I guess Lydon must have heard 'Mercury'.
Drama Drama Drama
It's
an indie-rock lumberjack match.
Well
Glad people are waking up to this, after there was relatively little fuss when he called other bands "homos" during their Isle of Wight set.
What an idiot.
Yeah.
What about Jay Z's homophobia and sexism? That didn't seem to bother you.
not again
change the fucking record
of fuck off you massive cunt
.
*oh
but you get the message
The only good thing to come out of this
is hopefully a Capcom released "Indie-Fighter".
^^^Genius
Imagine 'lil Yanis trying to stop the fight. Bless him.
Ricky wilson obvioulsy spotted the Riot!
Which famous indie star would be the best in the game? Frank from Gallows. That Tiny guy from Unbelievable Truth?
Tiny was in Ultrasound
doesn't really surprise me
john lydon has always been a complete piece of shit from day one. he's pathetic.
He hasn't though -
watch The Filth And The Fury - his abhorrence at racism is strongly evident - and weep at how far the mighty can fall.
wow
thats messed up.
Ah that's great of you, guys.
"DrownedinSound can not convey accurately just how disgusted we are by this unbelievable incident in words without completely destroying our swear filter. Suffice to say that if you see John Lydon and 'crew' any time soon, give him a piece of your mind on our behalf. We wish Kele a speedy recovery from his injuries."
Its very reassuring to know that if anyone ever gets in a fight in which one of the combatant's race is mentioned by the other party, DrownedinSound will be generous in dealing out their disgust.
And you'd prefer them to heartily approve instead?
0/10
How about an objective news perspective?
It was in an objective news perspective,
with DiS stating their opinion on the event just at the very end. The actual article was very factual.
You took your time getting here
They weren't THERE, were they? They're reporting on it afterwards.
Don't tell me.....
"It's political correctness gone mad!"
End of the day, regardless of the race issue (which very obviously was an issue), Old Turnip Lydon and/or his pathetic gang of monkeys injured Kele through violence, which makes them cunts.
I like How Yannis and Ricky got involved
most rubbish indie tag team ever? But good stuff lads anyway.
Lydon is an idiot. i'm sure he'll say 'i was the first person to play reggae at the roxy' or something in his defense.
having seen quite a few old punk bands-the pistols, the damned, the undertones, i'm not one bit suprised by the idea that pistols have an entourage of idiots. i can see them now. middle aged. bald. fat. leather jackets. cockney. Oh dear.
I hope kele sues the shit out of him.
Not sure about this
I'd be very wary of believing a story from the NME who aren't much different from the Sun these days.
Shh.
It gives us an opportunity to prove our anti-racism credentials! Stories like this are gold-dust!
Don't worry, Wrighty
There's a new Oasis album along soon for you to get excited about.
Go back to the shadow.
Yawn
There's a big difference between being the "scourge of the lefty-liberal-hand-wringing tendency" that you so desperately want to be, and just being plain objectionable. Life's too short for me to care though. You'll get all that misdirected anger out of your system eventually.
Cease your senile babble
and scroll up, to see my conquest over your pathetic existence.
What?
Oh God, that. Nice to see you've formed an opinion only on the bits you can remember. I'm not starting that up again.
Oh yeah, and you lose all the "pathetic Earthling"-type cartoon talk when you grow up as well.
I'm done. Carry on.
It would seem you also lose the 'earthling' look
when you grow up, adopting a more 'Middle-Earthling' chic.
You are annoying.
Congratulations. Please respond to this with some more words.
Racism is very bad.
But i've got to admit the thought of all these bands involved in a mass skuffle(even though thats not what happened)feels me with joy!..If only Henry Rollins was there.
It's not a story FROM NME...
...they have the same source as us.
The source does seem to be incredibly vague.
I mean obviously there was a pretty major incident and Lydon does look like desrving a lot of criticism but it doesn't seem incredibly clear exactly what he said or did (or didn't do, in terms of not intervening) and it does largley seem to depend on a lot conjecture.
Certainly Lydon doesn't come out of this looking very good at all but, in the absence of more information, it's hard to know to what extent he should be condemned for his actions.
more than 2 people stepped in
about 30 people stepped in. it was total chaos. no-one knew what had happened besides kele, ricky, and the sex pistols. but it got out of hand so fast that it didn't even matter. the spanish security guards were total thugs. yannis actually got knocked out for a few seconds after he got strong-armed to the floor and handcuffed. our tour manager was put in a headlock after asking the security to let us go as we had a flight to catch to england. jimmy went beetroot at one point lying in the dust. walter has a swollen eye. i managed to sustain a knee injury at some point which was remarkable given that i barely got involved.
anyway, yeah, security's method of dealing with it was to drag everyone to the floor, keep them there, then kick us all out of the festival as fast as possible. good times. what a great day we all had.
anyway, this is the first i've heard about what was said between the sex pistols and kele. i'm pretty surprised. i know john lydon is a dick, but i've always considered him to be intentionally theatrical and pretty decent/intelligent underneath all of that. i guess the sex pistols' company brings it out of him.
Poor old Walter!
:(
am i the only person wondering why Kele was there?
as Bloc Party weren't playing Summercase
he was just partying
matt was there too.
Kele appeared
on stage with the Kaiser Chiefs for one of their new songs - he was playing tambourine (along with the Kaiser Chiefs tour manager). I guess he is friends with them from their time spent together on the NME tour.
...
thats rubbish :(
i dont know what else to say
WE GOT A SLOBBERKNOCKER ON OUR HANDS
J.R!
Nice to see everyone's mind has been made up on this already
I mean why wait for the other side of the story, fuck impartiality right?
yep
fuck it
Yeah!
I reckon it's going to turn out that Bloc Party, Foals, Kaisers and all the rest of them MADE THIS WHOLE THING UP for a bit of publicity. They've all got albums or singles or tours on the way, right? Good job there weren't any witnesses.
Still, I'm sure everyone IS interested to hear what he has to say. I'm sure nobody will air their comments on here once he has, right? We're all shy and retiring types. :)
well...
If he is just saying that the comment snever happened, then its his word against kele and whoever else was there.
If its just a sarky 'these things happen' like i suspect it may be, then well, people can make their own inference from it.
does not surprise me too much if the Spanish police were too rough. Judging b their attitude to football chants, doubt they wouldv'e helped Kele at all.
I think he's saying
is all we've got to go from so far is
*a witness report from someone who witnessed it and weren't sure what was said
*Kele's comments that race was brought into it but with no clarification of what happened
*a witness report from someone else who says it was a racist incident but isn't entirely clear on what happened.
I think the point is that we actually don't have a full picture of what happened and, whilst judging from what we've heard it may be appropriate to criticise Lydon as a racist and a thug, we're actually only doing so on partial accounts of the story and haven't actually heard what happened from his perspective.
And, in the interests of fairness, it's probably necessary to get more information from someone who had a clearer view of what happened, and to know both Kele and Lydon's accounts of the incident, before we could fairly draw a conclusion.
I don't think anyone's trying to say nothing happened, or condoing racist behaviour but it's not unreasonable to suggest people don't make snap judgements without a clearer picture of the facts (which we may never get of course, but hopefully the police will and take whatever action is appropriate)
hmmm
shame the kaiser chiefs twat didnt cop an elbow to the larynx in the melee, rendering him unable to sing ever again
you're right
it is truly a shame that no-one got horribly injured to the extent that their lives were ruined.
haha
ha
you are a dick
People being injured is never a good thing.
Have some sense of common decency.
I AGREE!
Nobody should ever be injured ever again, and nobody should ever be allowed to make a hypothetical joke about somebody sustaining an injury, even if said joke consists only of words alluding to an imaginary incident which never occurred, and even if said somebody is the singer/jester in one of the worst bands of the decade! Three cheers for "common decency"!
This is disgusting
Lydon should be severely punished for this.
What a monster.