Singer-songwriter Regina Spektor’s concert in Portland, Maine, was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters over the weekend, as some attendees in the audience shouted “free Palestine” chants during the middle of her show on Saturday.
“You’re just yelling at a Jew,” Spektor, who is Jewish and emigrated to New York from the Soviet Union as a child, is seen saying on a fan-captured video to a protester in the crowd at Revolution Hall after he started shouting “free fucking Palestine.” Other pro-Israel attendees in the audience were also shouting “Am Israel Chai,” which is Hebrew for “the people of Israel live.”
Stereogum posted the fan-captured video on social media, further reporting that one protester had charged the stage shouting “free Palestine,” citing accounts of others in attendance.
“I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing,” Spektor said. “I really appreciate the security.”
Spektor had voiced her support of Israel in the past, including just days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Nova Music Festival attack, where she wrote that “if you’ve devalued Jewish life so much that mourning murdered Jewish children at a festival raped women, and the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust has offended you — leave.”
Another fan started shouting “free, free Palestine” after the “free fucking Palestine” chant as well. “I thought this was different than the internet, this is real life,” Spektor said.
A third attendee interrupted as well before the show could continue, saying that “there is a genocide happening. I’m watching children dying, that hurts.”
“You can leave the show if you want, this is not an internet comment section, I know you’re mistaking my show for a YouTube video,” Spektor continued. “I think you should go, this is not the place for that conversation. I’m a real person who came here to play music. If anybody wants to walk out, this is your chance. Does anybody else want to take a walk? You can.” In the fan video, a few more fans can be seen walking out.
“The only reason I even speak English is because I came here to escape this shit. I only speak English because I came from a country where people treated jews as othered, and I’m being othered here and it sucks. It’d be nice if one of my family’s generation didn’t have to go to a new country and learn a new language and just stay put. Have nice lives, you guys,” Spektor said.
The incident at Spektor’s concert reflects the continued tension within the music community on how to address the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. Groups like Kneecap and Bob Vylan have courted significant controversy for their pro-Palestine, anti-Israel messaging on the music festival circuit over the past several months. In Kneecap’s case, the Irish hip-hop group shared a message on the screen behind them during their Coachella weekend two set that read “fuck Israel, free Palestine.” English punk-rap duo Bob Vylan, meanwhile, lost their U.S. visas and were dropped by UTA after inciting a “death to the IDF” chant at Glastonbury back in June.
Those actions caught criticism from Jewish advocacy groups, who called the messaging antisemitic. Both Kneecap and Bob Vylan denied those claims, stating that their words were aimed at the Israeli government, not Jewish people.
“We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs, or any other race or group of people,” the duo wrote in a post on Instagram addressing the controversy. “We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine.”