The Strokes End Coachella Set With Anti-Intervention Political Montage

The Strokes closed their Coachella weekend-two set with “Oblivius,” then used the festival’s giant LED screens to turn the song into a sweeping protest against American foreign intervention and military action. The track had not been played live since 2016, and on Saturday night it became the backdrop for a montage that pushed the pop spectacle of Coachella into overt political territory.

The video sequence moved through images and names tied to U.S.-backed regime change and political violence, beginning with Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister whose 1953 removal has been confirmed by declassified U.S. documents as a CIA-orchestrated coup carried out with Britain. It also highlighted Patrice Lumumba, Juan José Torres, Jacobo Árbenz, Salvador Allende, Omar Torrijos and Jaime Roldós Aguilera, presenting each as part of a broader indictment of intervention in Congo, Guatemala, Bolivia, Chile, Panama and Ecuador.

One portion of the montage accused the U.S. government of being “found guilty of his murder in civil trial” in reference to Martin Luther King Jr., though the Department of Justice has said the evidence does not support the jury’s 1999 civil verdict on conspiracy. The clip widened from historical grievance to present-day war, claiming that more than 30 universities in Iran had been struck since U.S.-Israeli airstrikes began earlier this year, then ending on footage of Al-Israa University in Gaza, described onscreen as the last standing university in the Gaza Strip before its destruction in 2024.

The reaction was immediate. A clip of the performance surged past 3.7 million views on X overnight, and the response split quickly between fans praising the band’s statement as bold and principled and critics who saw it as inflammatory. Coachella organizers had not issued a public statement on the set and did not immediately respond to a request for comment, leaving the festival stage itself to carry the message.

The moment capped a weekend that had already signaled the band’s willingness to push into political theater. The Strokes first returned to Coachella after 15 years on April 11, when Julian Casablancas joked about looming military draft registration and wore a shirt mocking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. With Justin Bieber still to headline after their set and Goldenvoice already booking the band for its next Southern California festival in August, the protest looked less like an isolated stunt than a test of how far mainstream live entertainment can be stretched into a forum for dissent.