The Strokes condemn US actions in Gaza and Iran during Coachella set

The New York band, fronted by Julian Casablancas, were the penultimate act on the California festival's Saturday night. They played before headliner Justin Bieber.

Reviving the song "Oblivious" from their 2016 EP, Future Present Past, they took over the giant LED screens to display a montage of world leaders whose death the CIA has allegedly been involved. “What side you standing on?” Casablancas sang as the screen changed from Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz, who was overthrown in a CIA-engineered plot in 1954, through the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile, and onto footage stating that more than 30 universities in Iran have been destroyed by US-Israeli airstrikes this year.

Many clips of the performance have been taken down from sites such as X following the YouTube livestream, but you can see the footage on Reddit below.

Political involvement is not new ground for The Strokes. Casablancas is intimately involved in political campaigning, including for the successful election of New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, and for Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. But this marks the most overt statement from the band as a unit on stage.

The Strokes will release their long-awaited seventh album, Reality Awaits, on 26 June, their first since 2020.