The Strokes returned to Coachella’s main stage on Saturday for a second performance. This time, however, they closed their set with a direct condemnation of U.S. interference in foreign governments over the years. While performing their 2016 song “Oblivius,” which features the lyric “What side you standing on?,” the band displayed a video montage accusing the CIA of aiding and abetting forced regime change in Chile, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and more. The video concluded with videos of bombings in Gaza and Iran carried out by Israel and the U.S., respectively. Watch it below.
The montage named leaders like former Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, former Bolivian president Juan Torress, and former Chilean president Salvador Allende, pairing their photos with captions accusing the CIA of conspiring to overthrow them. At one point, an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared ahead of the caption “USGOVT found guilty of his murder in civil trial,” referencing a 1999 trial wherein a jury unanimously decided that there had been a government conspiracy to assassinate the civil rights leader. (In 2000, the Department of Justice reopened the murder case as a result of the trial, but said they found no evidence of a conspiracy.) The Strokes concluded their presentation with clips of humanmade destruction in Iran and Gaza, at one point showing a large building exploding alongside the caption: “Last university standing in Gaza.”
The video did not appear at the Strokes’ Weekend One set. Frontman Julian Casablancas did, however, provide some commentary on the American military during that show, asking the crowd: “You guys excited about the draft? Oh, wait, not the NFL draft.” It’s not the first time a band has made a political statement tied to the crisis in Gaza; last year, the rap trio Kneecap accused Coachella of cutting a pro-Palestine message they displayed during their set from its livestream.
The Strokes will follow up their Coachella performances with a tour later this year, which is set to take them across North America, Japan, and Europe this year. They’re also preparing their first new album in six years, Reality Awaits, which is out on June 26. The band shared a lead single, “Going Shopping,” last week.
