“Is this a carnival performance?”
Activists storm Andreas Gabalier's stage
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They have already thrown tomato soup at paintings, daubed the Brandenburg Gate and of course blocked traffic. Now climate activists are taking to a concert stage to draw attention to their concerns. A show by “Volks-Rock'n'Roller” Andreas Gabalier is affected.
It happened during a performance by Andreas Gabalier in Ischgl: activists from the last generation stormed onto the stage to once again demonstrate as popularly as possible for their demand for stricter climate protection measures. With some success – after all, they are sure to make headlines. Not least because a video of the action is circulating on social networks.
You can see two young men climbing the podium on which Gabalier and his band are warming up the audience. “How lyrically safe is Ischgl?” the singer can be heard saying as the demonstrators are already about to climb onto the stage. Once there, they try to unroll a few banners while the band – apparently undeterred – simply continues playing in the background.
However, a few stage workers drive the demonstrators into the parade. Not particularly squeamish, they stop the two of them from holding up their banners. Finally, several security men in yellow vests arrive and help carry the activists off the stage.
Before that, the demonstrators at least manage to scatter some confetti on the stage. This leads Gabalier to remark: “Maybe this is a carnival performance or something?”
“Don’t go against the concert”
The Last Generation Austria, however, later made it clear in a statement including the clip of the action on X: “The climate crisis is not a carnival event, as Andreas Gabalier comments.” The group is sorry for the disruption to the show, but they have a very good reason for it.
In another post, Last Generation Austria asserted that the protest was not directed against Andreas Gabalier. “It's not against the concert,” assured the group and added: “The climate crisis is escalating. We have to use every stage to point this out (…) so that such events are even possible in the future.”
The fact that a show by the self-proclaimed “people's rock'n'roller” was targeted could have been more than just a coincidence. In the past, there have been frequent reports about Gabalier's alleged closeness to the right-wing populist FPÖ, his conservative image of women or his lack of understanding of the “gender madness”. During a performance in Kitzbühel last summer, the singer also took aim at the Last Generation. “For years, my fans have been coming to my concerts peacefully and going home peacefully. For example, not a single one stuck themselves on the street today,” he said.
