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Britpop legends Pulp came close to pulling out of the Adelaide Festival’s free opening night concert following the decision to dump a Palestinian-Australian writer from the program but were convinced to delay the announcement by the festival.
In a statement to the band’s Instagram page on Thursday night (AEDT) Pulp said they were “appalled to hear of the circumstances in which the Adelaide Festival board had cancelled the scheduled appearance of Randa Abdel-Fattah, and respect those who immediately spoke out against this decision”.
Jarvis Cocker performs with Pulp at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles in 2024.Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
“We celebrate difference, and oppose censorship, violence and oppression in all its forms,” the band said.
However, after telling the festival they intended to join the boycott and would be withdrawing from the planned free show in the city’s Elder Park on February 27, Pulp was asked to “delay an announcement while they sought to resolve this crisis for all sides”.
The band said that “given this new and welcome development we feel able, in good conscience, to honour our invitation to perform in Adelaide”.
Separately on his personal page, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker had posted a picture of Abdel-Fattah and said the band had “told the festival organisers that we wouldn’t be able to play due to the dreadful situation with Dr Randa”.
But he said the band was “happy” the situation was resolved and were happy to play the “free concert, open to anyone who respects the freedom of all voices to be heard”.
In May 2025, Pulp were among signatories to an open letter defending Irish band Kneecap who had prompted widespread criticism and a police investigation for their comments and actions on stage in support of the Palestinian cause.
Earlier several musical acts pulled out of the Adelaide Festival event Tryp, with H34VEN0N34RTH and ADELAIDE BALLROOM, Jannah Quill X House of Vnholy and Skorpion King announcing via their Instagram pages that they would no longer be taking part due to the decision to drop Abdel-Fattah from the event. They have not yet revealed whether their decision has changed as a result of the festival’s efforts to resolve the situation.
Meanwhile, this week WOMADelaide rejected efforts to have Palestinian DJ Sama Abdulhadi removed from the event.
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“Sama Abdulhadi is internationally recognised as a pioneering female electronic music artist and cultural innovator, and she performs at festivals and music events around the world. Her inclusion reflects WOMADelaide’s commitment to showcasing artists of exceptional talent from a diverse range of countries and genres,” it said in an email to those lobbying for Abdulhadi to be dropped, reported by InSADaily.
“There are no changes to the WOMADelaide schedule, and we look forward to Sama Abdulhadi’s performance” on Saturday, March 7, a spokesperson told the outlet.
On Friday, Adelaide Festival executive director Julian Hobba told Radio National he had advised the board not to drop Abdel-Fattah from the program as the issue was being discussed over several months.
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“I guess I could say that it, it took place over a number of months … they heard me respectfully and thoroughly over a significant period of time, and they came to a different decision than the one I’d advised,” he said.
He also confirmed that SA Premier Peter Malinauskas had written to the board on January 2 about Abdel-Fattah’s scheduled appearance but that the letter “articulated the position that he has, now very publicly articulated, and it also, relayed that he understood it to be that it was the board’s decision”.
Hobba also said the board was “looking at what we might do instead of what was planned, but those are in the early stages of consideration”.
Also on Radio National on Friday morning, Abdel-Fattah defended accusations of hypocrisy over her efforts to have New York Times writer Thomas Friedman dumped from the writers’ week event in 2024.
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As reported by this masthead, Friedman was invited to the event but pulled out when he was told by festival organisers there was a “scheduling issue” and he would not be able to appear.
That move followed a petition to the board to dump Friedman over a controversial column he had written likening the political situation in the Middle East to the animal kingdom, with Abdel-Fattah among the signatories, sparking accusations of hypocrisy.
“I really reject the equivalence between Thomas Friedman and our principled, you know, response to his outrageously racist article in which he used racial tropes of animals, to, to describe people in the Middle East...
“We have to think here, not just about the question of free speech and censorship, but I am approaching this as an anti-racism scholar and advocate,” she said.
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