Glastonbury 2024: Fat White Family mock IDLES’ Joe Talbot

29 June, 2024

Joe Talbot and Lias Saoudi

Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi laid into IDLES’ Joe Talbot during a riotous set at Glastonbury‘s Woodsies stage today (June 29).

Saoudi, sporting skin coloured mesh tights, poked fun at IDLES’ set on the Other stage last night (June 28), during which Talbot led a chant of “Fuck the King!” and inadvertently took part in a Banksy-assisted protest.

Before a rendition of ‘I Am Mark E Smith’, Saodui dryly announced: “This is a song about my feminist zeal – it’s called ‘I am Joe Talbot'”, and later acknowledged the chants at IDLES set by saying: “God save the King! Fuck off”.

It’s not the first time the bands have come to blows. Back in April, the Fat White Family frontman accused them of “grandstanding on that woke ticket”.

In a conversation with The Independent, he said at the time: “I don’t mind bands being dull or whatever, fair enough, but when you’re grandstanding on that woke ticket I just find that anathema to what rock n’ roll really is, which is the reprobates. This is freak country. We don’t bring that kind of thing in here.”

Sleaford Mods‘ Jason Williamson has also previously weighed in, and accused IDLES of “appropriating a working class voice”.

Saodui again took a swipe following those comments, backing Williamson by saying: “The last thing our increasingly puritanical culture needs right now is a bunch of self neutering middle class boobs telling us to be nice to immigrants; you might call that art, I call it sententious pedantry.”

During IDLES’ set last night, Talbot explained ‘Danny Nedelko’ was “a celebration of the bravery and the hard work of the immigrants who built our country,” and a fake life-raft bearing life jacket wearing dummies worked it’s way through the crowd.

Although it’s now emerged that the migrant boat float was a Banksy piece the band were unaware of, the politically charged tone of their set drew incredibly varied reactions.

In a four-star review, NME wrote: “[Talbot] repeatedly announces “Viva Palestina!”, incites a crowd to bellow “Fuck the King!” and demands a circle pit so massive it makes “the whole fucking field spin”. He almost gets his wish.”

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