Alphaville disbarred from festival because of political statements

Controversy surrounding Alphaville (“Forever Young”): The band, led by singer Marian Gold, was disinvited from the Glücksfühle festival in Hockenheim. The reason is said to be the band's political statements.

The organizers told the dpa news agency: "Our stage is not a platform for political statements. The GLÜCKSGEFÜHLE Festival is completely apolitical - and that applies regardless of the political direction in which the statement goes: for the right, for the left or for any other political direction."

Markus Krampe, who has been organizing the event with former national soccer player Lukas Podolski since 2023, had previously commented on this in “Bild”.

“From our point of view, this justification is like a gag order – something we are all very familiar with from dictatorships,” writes Alphaville singer Gold in a post on Instagram. “We find the fact that such a restriction on freedom of opinion, speech and art now seems to have arrived at one of Germany’s largest pop festivals to be absolutely intolerable and shocking.”

Organizers see “unacceptable” behavior from the band

The organizers, in turn, declared: "The behavior of Alphaville and Marian Gold is unacceptable. We will not allow ourselves to be pushed into any political corner and will defend ourselves here with all means possible." The band was actually supposed to perform at the festival on Friday.

"We have already hosted Alphaville at two other events this year. At the first event, the band made numerous political statements from the stage. That is why we communicated very clearly in the run-up to the second appearance that we do not want this at our events," the statement said. "This requirement was adhered to during this second appearance. Before the GLÜCKSGEFÜHLE Festival, we expressly reminded you of this again and clearly communicated our position."

It goes on to say: "For us it is expressly not about the political stance of Marian Gold or Alphaville nor about denying someone their personal opinion. It is all about the framework we as organizers set for our events and our stages."

What the organizers specifically mean by the statements remains unclear. Alphaville singer Gold recently spoke out clearly against right-wing radical tendencies and for tolerance at concerts when he announced the song “Carry Your Flag”. This led to discussions with the organizers of “Glücksfühle”, band manager Christian Mielke told dpa.

Meanwhile, the artist published a series of photos on his Instagram page that showed him in front of posters from various left-wing movements: These included the rainbow flag of the LGTBQ movement, Antifa symbols, an appeal for sea rescue in the Mediterranean and a flag with the imprint “Don’t feel like Nazis”.

The festival's statement, however, says: "We want to give people a weekend where they can leave everyday life behind them, switch off and simply have a good time." And further: "That's exactly why we asked that political statements be refrained from on our stage. Ultimately, we couldn't agree on this with Alphaville, which is why there was no performance."