American rock band The Strokes ended their Weekend Two performance at Coachella 2026 with an explicit political statement, projecting a montage that accused the United States of decades of imperialist intervention and linked it directly to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The sequence played during ‘Oblivius,’ performed live for the first time since 2016. As Julian Casablancas repeated the line “What side are you standing on?”, the screens behind the band displayed a timeline of U.S. intervention — moving from Cold War-era operations to present-day military violence.

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Images of leaders including Mohammad Mosaddegh, Patrice Lumumba, Jacobo Árbenz and Salvador Allende appeared as part of a section accusing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of orchestrating coups and destabilising governments across Latin America, Africa and Central Asia.

Another segment referenced the 1999 civil case tied to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., displaying the claim that the U.S. government was found guilty (the trial occurred in 1999; the following year, the Justice Department said it found no evidence supporting the jury’s conclusion), and extended the critique from foreign policy to domestic history, portraying American state violence as systemic.

The montage then shifted to the present. A caption reading “Over 30 universities destroyed in Iran” appeared over footage of bombed infrastructure. It was followed by a video of a large building in Gaza being destroyed in an airstrike, labelled “Last university standing in Gaza.” 

The sequencing directly connected U.S. military action and Israeli bombardment, presenting the genocide in Gaza as enabled by American support. It also echoed Irish group Kneecap’s pro-Palestine messaging at Coachella 2025, though The Strokes’ approach leaned more on archival imagery.

The video ended with the image of a bomber aircraft before abruptly cutting to black. The band walked off stage without addressing the audience. Festival organisers did not intervene, and the official livestream broadcast the full sequence without censorship.

Clips from the montage have been spreading rapidly across platforms in the day since the performance, with some videos crossing millions of views overnight. Many users praised the band’s willingness to explicitly connect U.S. foreign policy to the destruction in Gaza, describing the moment as “brave,” “necessary,” and “one of the boldest statements ever made at Coachella.” 

Posts circulating on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Reddit positioned the band alongside a growing wave of artists openly addressing Palestine, with many users arguing that The Strokes had “used their platform properly” at a time when silence from mainstream acts has been widely criticised. 

At the same time, multiple reports indicate that videos of the performance have been taken down from X after gaining significant traction, with at least one clip surpassing five million views before being removed. Other clips were also reported to have disappeared from the platform, even as copies continued circulating on alternative channels, particularly Reddit and smaller video-sharing sites.

The removals have now triggered a second wave of reaction, as users accused the platform of selectively restricting political content related to Gaza, with some explicitly linking the takedowns to the subject matter of the montage. Claims of “censorship” and “suppression” have been trending alongside reposted clips, with users urging others to download and re-upload the footage to prevent it from disappearing entirely.

The Strokes’ position aligns with Casablancas’ earlier public support for Palestine, including his participation in a 2021 musicians’ letter. The band is scheduled to begin a world tour in June, with major festival appearances planned in the United States later this year. Whether the Coachella montage becomes a recurring element of their shows remains unclear.