The Strokes wrapped up their Coachella set Saturday night by using the festival’s massive onstage LED screens to display a political protest against foreign interventions by the U.S.
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During the second weekend of the annual Southern California festival, the group made its stance unmistakable as it ended on a performance of the 2016 song “Oblivius” — accompanied by a montage showing confirmed and suspected instances of CIA involvement in overthrowing foreign governments.
Bright mosque imagery on the screens gave way to a portrait of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, whose removal from power in 1953 has since been confirmed by declassified U.S. documents as a CIA-orchestrated coup carried out in coordination with Britain.
The images continued as lead singer Julian Casablancas sang the lyrics “What side you standing on?”
Clips of the performance spread rapidly online, with one clip surpassing 3.7 million views on X overnight. Coachella organizers have not issued a public statement on the set and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The American band went on to spotlight CIA and Belgian plots against Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of the Congo, as well as CIA-engineered overthrows of Bolivian President Juan José Torres and Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz.
The montage also pointed to alleged CIA involvement in the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende and the plane-crash deaths of Panamanian military leader Omar Torrijos and Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldós Aguilera (spelled on screen as “Jaime Rondos”).
It further highlighted suspected government involvement in Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, with an on-screen title accusing the U.S. government of being “found guilty of his murder in civil trial.”
The Department of Justice, following its own investigation, concluded that the evidence did not support the jury’s 1999 civil verdict that “others, including government agencies,” participated in a conspiracy to assassinate King.
The Strokes’ visual protest closed on footage stating that more than 30 universities in Iran have been struck since U.S.-Israeli airstrikes began earlier this year — a figure reported by Iran’s Ministry of Science and Technology — followed by a clip of Al-Israa University, the last standing university in the Gaza Strip before Israeli forces demolished it in 2024.
The band is the latest act to denounce Israel’s actions in Gaza on a global stage, as a growing number of artists have publicly voiced concern for Palestinians in recent years. During the first weekend of this year’s Coachella, singer Gigi Perez called for a “free Palestine” while simultaneously condemning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At last year’s Coachella, Irish hip-hop group Kneecap performed in front of a screen with the words “F— Israel, Free Palestine.”
Similar political commentary reached the stage at last year’s Glastonbury Festival, where Kneecap and English punk duo Bob Vylan came under fire for leading the audience in chants supporting Palestinians and condemning Israel.
During Saturday’s set, the Strokes continued to be outspoken. In one moment that has now become a viral clip online, singer Casablancas told the crowd he had been “tempted to come out tonight with a laptop and show you guys some of those Iran Lego videos” — a reference to AI-generated clips produced by Iranian groups using Lego-style figures to criticize the United States and share pro-Iran messaging.
“More facts than your local news. But they were taken down,” he said, blaming “YouTube or government or whatever.”
YouTube confirmed to NBC News that it removed Explosive Media — the Iran-based channel responsible for most of the videos — from the platform last month for “violating our spam, deceptive practices and scams policies.” The group’s Instagram account also appeared to have been temporarily taken down in March, although it’s back online now.
“Land of the free, am I right?” Casablancas said.
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