The Dublin post-punk band faced a contentious situation while setting up for their Berlin show at Club Gretchen, intending to display a Palestinian flag, a common practice in their performances. Upon arrival, they were informed by venue management that displaying the flag was against their policy. Band frontman James McGovern addressed the audience through social media, detailing their decision to keep the flag on stage amidst concerns about possible show cancellation, emphasizing their commitment to their fans and the message behind the flag.
We pulled into Berlin this morning. We had no idea that we weren't allowed to fly this [Palestinian] flag here today. We found out early this afternoon.
We discussed it for an hour at length, what we should do. We came to the decision that we were not going to take the flag off the stage.
It was a decision pretty easily made, but we discussed possible outcomes - what if they decide to cancel the show? We thought about all of you deeply, because we care about you deeply.
We put it up at about 2pm as we set up the stage. After that, we said: 'We discussed a little bit on and off, would we replace the flag... They wouldn't allow us to do that either.
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