Radiohead's Thom Yorke is not staying silent when it comes to how he handles his shows.
The singer was performing a solo show in Melbourne, Australia on Oct. 30 when he was confronted by a heckler in the crowd over the ongoing war in the Middle East between Israeli and Hamas.
The man yelled comments about the "Israeli genocide of Gaza" and also made comments about the deaths of children. This led Yorke to stop his show and tell the heckler to come say those comments to his face.
"Come up here and say that. Right here, come on," Yorke said while holding his guitar.
Other people in the audience booed the heckler and one other person even told the man to "shut the f--k up."
"Hop up on the f–king stage and say what you wanna say. Don't stand there like a coward, come here and say it. You want to p–s on everybody's night?" Yorke added.
The man did not stop his heckling and responded with another comment about Gaza and Yorke appeared to have had enough at this point.
"OK, you do it, see you later then," he said before walking off stage.
“Don’t stand there like a coward,come here and say it!”
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) October 30, 2024
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke responded to an anti-Israel hackler who kept yelling about Gaza throughout his show in Melbourne today.
Yorke left the stage and came back after the crowd kicked out the protester. pic.twitter.com/a5yhtBWpTo
Yorke left the stage only to come back later and he would go on to perform Radiohead's song "Karma Police."
Yorke is on his Everything tour, on which he's playing solo material as well as songs from Radiohead and spin-off group The Smile.
This is not the first time that Yorke has been confronted about issues in the Middle East. In 2017 he defended Radiohead's decision to perform in Tel Aviv.
"We don't endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America," Yorke said, according to Billboard.
Radiohead has a long history with Israel, with their early hit "Creep" first finding success on Israeli radio, and the band has performed in the country throughout their career.
In May, Radiohead musician Jonny Greenwood was criticized for playing a gig in Tel Aviv with Israeli artist Dudu Tassa. This led him to respond with a lengthy statement.
"No art is as 'important' as stopping all the death and suffering around us. How can it be? But doing nothing seems like a worse option. And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn't seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict," he said, according to The Guardian.
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