Muse Postpone Istanbul Concert After Fan Backlash Over Promoter

I'm sure it's not easy to function as a gigantic global rock band with a general join-the-resistance message, but it shouldn't be this hard. In 2023, Muse played the same Malaysian festival where the 1975 got arrested and sued when frontman Matty Healy spoke out against against the country's anti-LGBTQ laws and kissed bandmate Ross MacDonald. Muse, by contrast, went out of their way to comply with Malaysian guidelines, cutting their song "We Are Fucking Fucked" from their setlist. Now, Muse have postponed an upcoming show in Istanbul after pressure from fans, since the concert promoter publicly decried Turkey's mass protests as "treason."

As the BBC reports, a wave of mass protests has gripped Turkey for the last few weeks after Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested on corruption charges. Imamoglu denies those charges, and it seems much more likely that he's locked up for opposing the country's authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who he planned challenge in a 2028 election. Since that arrest on March 19, police have arrested thousands of protesters.

The promoter behind that upcoming Muse show in Istanbul was DBL Entertainment, a company run by the Turkish businessman Abdülkadir Özkan. Protesters have been boycotting companies close to Erdogan, one of which is a coffee chain called EspressoLab. Özkan recently tweeted about the EspressoLab boycotters, writing, "Plain and simple, this is hostility towards the capital. Act of treason."

After a public outcry, Özkan issued a statement, saying that his statement was "taken out of context" and that DBL is "withdrawing from all projects." Robbie Williams and Trevor Noah both cancelled DBL-promoted events in Istanbul, and now Muse have announced that they're postponing their Istanbul show to find a different promoter. On Twitter, the band writes, "After careful consideration and hearing the feedback from our fans whilst fully respecting their concerns, our show in Istanbul will be now postponed until 2026 so we can ensure DBL Entertainment will not be involved."