Palestinian-led group held a protest against the Boy George concert at publicly owned Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) after calls for urgent review went unanswered.
A Coordinated Action for Palestine will held a public protest on Monday, September 7 at the Hastings and Renfrew at the PNE entrance in response to Boy George and Culture Club’s scheduled performance.
The action was not simply a boycott of one performer. Organizers are calling on the PNE, the City of Vancouver, and event sponsors to answer for the use of a publicly owned venue to platform material Palestinians and supporters say normalizes anti-Palestinian racism.
The PNE has refused to cancel the the Boy George Concert on September 7 despite demands and petitions to cancel it due to his recent pro-zionist song.
Boy George, 65, who self-released the track, recorded it to show support for Israel is facing backlash, possibly from his own band.
He said he will fire members of his band who do not want to perform his pro-Israel song We Will Dance Again.
The song’s title is a phrase used to express solidarity after Hamas’s 7 October, 2023 attacks on a music festival and other Israeli communities in Israel in which 1,221 people were killed, according to an AFP calculation based on official data.
More than 70,000 people were killed in Gaza in Israel’s ensuing offensive against the Palestinian militants, according to the territory’s health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Boy George’s song has been criticised for lyrics including: “You say genocide, I say war.”
The lyrics also contain criticism of pro-Palestinian activists, including the verse: “You condemn the Jews, with selective memory / Musicians holding flags, mouthing like sheep / Propaganda fuelled by the internet feels so weak.”
Boy George, whose real name is George O’Dowd, has revealed some members of his band were not comfortable with the song.
In an Instagram video, he said: “Even now the song is written, there are people in my band who are questioning whether they’ll perform it with me. And those people will be fired.”
He used generative AI to write the song, added: “I don’t need gatekeepers, and one of the great things about AI is that it removes all the interference, all the human interference. The lyrics are mine, the melody is mine.”
Following public criticism, Boy George stepped down from his role as King Herod in the 2026 revival of Jesus Christ Superstar at the London Palladium.
The Culture Club star has speculated that his recent concert in Frankfurt could have been sabotaged over the song, as his ear monitors kept getting louder until he had to cut the performance short.
Boy George responded on X to an article in Germany’s weekly Jewish newspaper Jüdische Allgemeine, which speculated on whether his performance was sabotaged.
He wrote: “The truth is I will never know. Lesson learnt. Only work with your own sound people.
“The first song was a car crash, which was weird because the sound was set earlier in the day, so it shouldn’t change.
“However, you allow for a bit of mess in any opening song, but by song two I had asked them to turn down the sound, but it just got louder and louder. I had to bow out, but I did what I could, and that’s all that matters.”
Boy George, who is not Jewish, has recently voiced support for Jewish people.
He told The Telegraph: “Over the years it’s been a really personal thing. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have compassion for Palestinians, it doesn’t mean that I agree with what’s going on in Israel, but I am always going to defend the people that I love.
“I have a lot of Jewish friends and there would never be a situation where I’d turn my back on them.”
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