Bob Vylan - Just another tribute act.
I've seen Led Balloon and Dire Streets, they were far superior to Bob Vylan.
When I heard there was a fuss about Bob Vylan’s performance at Gallstone-bury - the festival for the over-fed over-40s - I thought to myself “All part of the act. He’s obviously reinacted the ‘Judas’ bit from Dylan’s Manchester Free Trade Hall gig in 1966”. I’d never heard of BV, who had? Obviously he was a tribute act with a name like that, right?
Well maybe he’s not a tribute act to Dylan but maybe he is another type of tribute act.
History
Bob Vylan, or rather Pascal Robinson-Foster didn’t come to fame as a musician, he did so as a poet, the Black and Asian Police Association conference in Manchester in 2005. In March 2006 the BBC, describing him as “an established performance poet” made a film on him using his pseudonym “Nee hi”, the film has been removed from the BBC’s website. He would have been around 16 years of age at the time.
Isn’t it funny how many people in the news the BBC has taken a shine to when they are mere kids?
Source : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/30/bbc-promoted-hate-speech-rapper-bobby-vylan-glastonbury/
Source : https://www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/content/articles/2007/02/22/video_nation_nee_hi_video_feature.shtml
Bob Vylan
According to Wikipedia
“In the first year of the band's history (2017), Bob Vylan released four singles and two EPs, Dread and Vylan, via the band's own label, Ghost Theatre. Following the DIY principle, the musicians personally delivered their albums to various record stores and booked their own shows.”
So they were a pub band. And how many record shops were there in 2017? Must have been hard to earn a living doing that.
“On 7 August 2020, the band released their debut album, We Live Here. Bob Vylan then toured supporting the Offspring and Biffy Clyro and performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2021”
Reading and Leeds are large UK festivals as I understand it and even I, dear reader, a man in his late 50s, have heard of Biffy Clyro - It’s a bit Foo Fighters for my taste but I can see teens or those wanting to return to their teens might like it. The Offspring are a band whose members are older than me and, I’m not kidding, I’ve been to a work colleagues band and they were far, far better (and younger) than the Offspring. They appear to be a 1970s US punk tribute band. But still that’s a major step up, well done the BVs.
In 2022 BV won a new award at the MOBOs, Best Alternative Music Act. They also won the Kerrang award for best album for “Bob Vylan presents the price of life” Kerrang used to be the heavy metal music paper back in the 1980s when music weekly papers were a thing, they now style themselves as “The world's greatest metal / punk / hardcore / rock music publication”
But no real chart success. His appearance at Gallstone was on the “West Holts stage”, one of the very minor stages, at 2:30 in the afternoon. When they finished that other group I’ve already discussed, Kneecap, followed them.
All very interesting and absolutely a coincidence, honest.
Now you know why that member of Kneecap wears the balaclava!
I thought I’d take a look at BV’s music to see what it was all about.
Now before I say anything more I’ll tell you I am a fan of most types of music and that my favourite album is “Fat of the Land” by The Prodigy. I grew up listening to heavy metal, punk, rock, ska, reggae, two-tone, disco, funk, art rock, synthpop, swing, crooners, new romantics, new wave, hip hop, rock and classical music. And I love some of all of the above, and other genres, and admire those who made the music.
Some things I don’t like but can see they are creative but not well performed, eg I think Chelsea Girl by Nico is a great album and her imperfect (to say the least) voice might actually increase its “desolate beauty”.
Some things I don’t like because they are low quality, nihilistic and divisive. And that’s what BV is and why it is fitting they were followed by Kneecap.
They are both tribute bands to hatred and division. They pretend to be against the thugs screaming into the face of the defenceless woman at the bus stop, but they are their biggest fans. They want more of it. They want you to hate them because it makes them money.
That is what they are paid to do.
Don’t buy a ticket to hate.
All the pose of Rage Against The Machine without the lyrical subtlety. I thought their naming pun was copied from Kurt Vile.