Massive Attack cancelled their Liverpool gig, as an arms fair is to take place in the city

 

Such an appalling situation!! 

 

I can't believe a city like Liverpool let this situation evolve this way. When art, culture and progress have to be cancelled over an Arm Fair, in 2021, the year of the failure in Afghanistan and a collective remembrance of 20 years of appalling war-going policies from the UK and their ally, the USA, it is a revolting outcome. Utmost respect to Massive Attack.

 

 

Massive Attack had to cancel their Liverpool gig, in opposition to a coming arms fair in the city

  

The Bristol band just cancelled this Friday their upcoming concert at the ACC Liverpool in opposition to an electronic arms fair being held at the venue.

 

 

Massive Attack performing in Dublin in 2016 (photo: Melissa Chemam)

They were set to play a ‘super-low carbon’ show at the venue, the ACC Exhibition Centre in Liverpool, in late October, to support the development of their Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research project (link:https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=56701). But Massive Attack took the decision to cancel the concert, due to the AOC Europe 2021 - previously Electronic Warfare Europe 2021. 

They cancelled in solidarity with the civic protest & unions, after Liverpool’s mayor said she was powerless about canceling the event, a decision that the band and anti-military activists judged “incomprehensible”, especially with the coming COP26, the United Nations Climate Change conference, to take place in the UK, in Glasgow in November. 

 

The venue is to host the arms fair from 11-13 October 2021.

 

The AOC (Association of Old Crows) describes itself as an ‘organisation for individuals who have common interests in Electronic Warfare (EW), Electromagnetic Spectrum Management Operations, Cyber Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA), Information Operations (IO), and other information-related capabilities’, and the two-day event ‘connects organisations and individuals across government, defence, industry, and academia to promote the exchange of ideas and information, and review the latest advances in electromagnetic- and information-related fields’.

 

Massive Attack – Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja and Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall – confirmed they were cancelling their gig in solidarity with local campaigners, via Instagram and Twitter this Friday morning: 

 

‘Owing to the @ACCLiverpool decision to not cancel the Electronic Warfare arms fair in Liverpool & in solidarity with campaigners @AgainstArms @RedRosa91940184 @MerseyPensioner @CAATuk our long scheduled show in that venue will now be cancelled.’

 

Their followers and fellow activists showed support to their move, such as Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington John McDonnell, who called the gesture ‘a great act of solidarity’. The movement Occupy London, which Massive Attack supported in 2011, also tweeted: 

 

‘So much respect for integrity of  @MassiveAttackUK who supported us ten years ago and who have never stopped using their platform for justice and never forgot that a better world is possible.’

 

The Liverpool Against The Arms Fair account added: ‘There are clearly big consequences to refusing to cancel this event. The pressure is building.’

 

A coalition of local campaigners are holding a demonstration this weekend against the arms fair, with CAAT (Campaign Against Arms Trade). Liverpool Against the Arms Fair, a local coalition of campaigners opposing the fair, has called a demonstration against the fair on 11 September 2021, the demonstration beginning at Princes Park at 11.30am. A highly symbolic date if any, as the world remember the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City which happened 20 years ago and sparked devastating retaliation war in Afghanistan and later Iraq.

 

The whole journey of the band has been deeply affected by these events, and changed the trajectory of their performances and messages, from their first album, Blue Lines, being released around the beginning of the first Gulf War in 1991, to their deep engagement in protesting against the Second War in Iraq in 2002 and 2003. 

 

In response to the confirmation of the arms fair, Liverpool Against the Arms Fair’s campaigners wrote, also on Twitter: 

 

‘The AOC Europe 2021 arms fair is scheduled to take place at the council-owned ACC Exhibition Centre in Liverpool. At the fair, arms merchants, whose weapons have been used to target civilian populations around the world, are due to use Liverpool to market and sell their arms and military technology. 

 

Massive Attack first announced this special ‘low-carbon’ Liverpool concert back in 2019, without publishing a precise date. The show was intended to be part of their work to dramatically reduce the carbon impact of the band, their crew, transport, catering, merchandise and production, as Robert Del Naja said back then:

 

‘We’re looking forward to exploring the social and scientific solutions to the challenges we face in transitioning to a low-carbon society. This project offers an opportunity to work with new and progressive identities in the planning, energy, technology and transport sectors. This comes after years of participation in large scale music events that have had questionable sponsors on the ticket and, too often, very little enthusiasm for meaningful change.’

 

ACC Liverpool is a multipurpose arena and convention centre on the former Kings Dock, Liverpool, England, opened in May 2008. The Arms Fair will take place in the same city building, which is a public-own space. 

 

Massive Attack’s last concert in Liverpool occurred in 2003. And the latest UK concert took place in Bristol in March 2019, while Robert Del Naja also performed a DJ set that year, at an Extinction Rebellion demonstration in London, in April, to support their fight against the climate crisis. The band are still planning a European ‘Low-Carbon’ tour for 2022.