Freedom Fighters and heroes of arts and culture decided to come together and fight oppression, tyranny and dictatorship. With no labels and in total spontaneity, a group of individuals gathered themselves under one banner after the freedom of expression and art has been violated in Lebanon.

You’ve heard the news; after a 2 week-long media circus, Mashrou’ Leila, the Lebanese indie rock, had their act cancelled from the Byblos International Festival schedule on August 9th, by the festival committee for safety concerns of the staff, bands and attendees. ICYMI, read the full story >here<.

Music Is Louder (صوت الموسيقة أعلى) is the name of the event that will be held and will feature a weird, yet great combination of artists. The line up is versatile and features poets, actors, comedians, musicians, bands and more. The spontaneous talent collective will be protesting the terrorizing acts that led Mashrou’ Leila to cancel their show out of FEAR. In addition, with a scary domino effect, Dutch Metal band Within Temptation felt unsafe to come and cancelled their show, and voiced their support to Mashrou’ Leila. (Read about it >here<)

When we asked the organizers about how the initiative came to be, they replied: “The organizers are individuals that decided to come together and fight oppression. This fight for freedom of speech has been going on for years, but this is the first time it gets this much attention since Mashrou’ Leila is a big name in Lebanon. We got together and decided that it’s time to take a stand and came up with the idea of an alternative concert that is free of hate-speech, censorship, and homophobia.”

The line up is a work of art in it self, it is too interesting to miss, and “consists of artists, singers, bands, stand-up comedians, dancers, and more.” (check full line up >here<). And as the event will mostly involve live music, it naturally came into question whether Mashou’ Leila will make an appearance. But, “unfortunately, most band members are not in Lebanon and will not be able to physically be there with us.”

As Metal Bell and many of us Metalheads have been victims of such oppression, most recently with the ban of Sepultura, we are hoping that such movements would become regular and let our voices be heard. The organizers clarified that “The aim is to fight censorship and hate speech and promote freedom of speech. This idea was put together very fast due to the time frame. We would very much like to continue with this activity later, but are still unsure how.”

We hope to see you all on August 9th at the Palace to protest against violence and against oppression of any kind.
Read all the event details >here<

Music Is Louder

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