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WORDS Sophie Lou Wilson
HEADER IMAGE Courtesy of the Museum of Youth Culture
More than 12,000 voices echo around Wembley Arena, chanting, “Free, free Palestine.” At home, another 200,000 people are tuned into the livestream. The day before the Together For Palestine benefit concert, the United Nations declared that Israel had committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. The UK government still refuses to use that word.
From punk to free parties, soundsystem culture to carnival, music has long provided a platform for organising outside of official institutions. Social media has revolutionised activism, but it can also splinter movements into different online echo chambers and comment sections, breeding disillusion and loneliness. Benefit concerts – whether grassroots punk gigs or star-studded stadium shows – fill in the gaps, drawing from the collective power of standing together under one roof.
“Music is not going to stop the genocide,” says Palestinian sound artist Bint Mbareh, who performed at Mustafa’s Artists for Aid event at London’s Troxy last summer alongside artists like Blood Orange, Clairo and King Krule. “But events are really powerful at bringing people together, especially for those who were losing hope or a sense of reality because they were stuck to their phones and diving into extremely deep sadness.”
Music is not going to stop the genocide, but events are really powerful at bringing people together, especially for those who were losing hope or a sense of reality because they were stuck to their phones and diving into extremely deep sadness.
Bint Mbareh
Last summer, hope felt like it was in short supply. As the far-right vandalised towns with Union Jacks and St. George’s flags, Rock Against Racism veteran Ameen Hadi told The Guardian that we need more anti-racist concerts to stop the rise of the far-right in the UK. Ed Gibbs, who produced the 2019 Rock Against Racism documentary White Riot, echoes this sentiment today. “Today’s climate is shockingly similar in terms of the rise of the far right,” he says. “The difference now is that the far-right has gotten far more powerful. In many parts of the world, they are the power – something that young people fought passionately against ever happening back in the 70s and 80s.”
Rock Against Racism emerged from the underground in the mid-1970s to fight the rise of the National Front, staging grassroots marches and concerts across the UK. “They put on gigs with bands who were basically saying, it’s not cool to be racist,” says the Museum of Youth Culture’s Archives Project Manager Lisa der Weduwe. “It seems silly, but it was effective. It’s about making sure that we’re reaching people before they reach the far-right. Social media has made that more difficult because far-right influencers make it really easy for people to get sucked into that narrative, but music and events can help counter that.”
It’s about making sure that we’re reaching people before they reach the far-right. Social media has made that more difficult because far-right influencers make it really easy for people to get sucked into that narrative, but music and events can help counter that.
Lisa der Weduwe, Museum of Youth Culture’s Archives Project Manager
Music has the potential to reach people that other forms of activism might never touch. It’s a way to use celebrity culture for good, to engage people who might have remained disengaged if their favourite artist hadn’t spoken out. “Going to a concert venue is already political,” notes Mbareh. “You’re choosing not to stream music and making sure that your favourite artists get paid. You’re choosing to physically take your body there. That’s 90 per cent of what going to a protest is.”
However, local, independent music venues are struggling. Many of the venues in rural towns that Rock Against Racism organised in have now closed down. “[In the 70s] a group of activists could put on a Rock Against Racism event in a local pub in Clacton-on-Sea,” says Weduwe. “They were really going down to small, rural towns and were still able to meet and put on events because you had that grassroots music network that was there.”
Even as they struggle to stay open, grassroots venues continue to play a vital role in the UK’s benefit concert ecosystem. Mbareh has organised a series of concerts in aid of Palestinian relief efforts at Cafe Oto, which she describes as “more of a protest than a fundraising event.” The independent East London venue offered her the space for free, allowing her to experiment with the format without taking a financial risk. “Having a space like that in London is so rare, where you actually get to have a bit of flexibility,” she says. “That kind of freedom is what a local venue can give.”
Having a space like that in London is so rare, where you actually get to have a bit of flexibility. That kind of freedom is what a local venue can give.
Bint Mbareh
When Brian Eno decided to organise a benefit concert for Palestine, it took him months to find a venue that would say yes. Many venues simply saw the word ‘Palestine’ and refused. Similarly, YouTube hesitated about streaming the event before “finally consenting,” as he told The Guardian. Like Rock Against Racism before it, the event was not covered by any mainstream television network, despite pulling in performers like Gorillaz, Paul Weller and Neneh Cherry, to name a few.
Beyond the well-known celebrities on the line-up, the concert platformed Palestinian activists and artists alongside charity workers and global human rights campaigners who led moving, galvanising speeches about the genocide and the UK government’s complicity. This element felt like a conscious departure from benefit concerts of the past, like Live Aid, where African performers were notably absent, despite the concert being staged in their name.
To retain their radical impulse, benefit concerts have to stretch beyond celebrity spectacle and beyond tokenism. “It’s about ensuring that politics is woven into the programming, not just at the moment of crisis,” says Mbareh, “and that already counters celebrity culture and tells us that you’re committed to music and not views and not followers or ways of moving in our scene.”
In March, Transmission took over Wembley Arena to raise funds and show solidarity with the trans community. The programme features queer and trans artists like Kae Tempest, jasmine.4.t, Romy and Beth Ditto. Organiser Glyn Fussell sees benefit concerts as a vehicle for hope. “All we want is to empower the community, for them to know they are loved and supported,” he explains, “and that we are not as divided as the far-right wants us to be.”
In an era when political marches are being heavily policed, and protestors in their 80s can be arrested simply for holding a sign that reads ‘Palestine Action’, benefit concerts have taken on renewed significance. They are a form of collective protest and expression that is harder to fragment and surveil. Concerts with an explicitly political goal continue the UK’s long tradition of subcultural defiance. For Fussell, in 2026, the stakes are clear: “Hate pushes civilisation back into the dark ages, but joy and hope push it forward. I want to be part of that hopeful future.”
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