Overview
- The Strokes, which closed their Saturday Coachella set with “Oblivius,” ran a montage that accused the CIA of regime change and ended with footage labeled as Israeli strikes in Gaza and U.S. strikes in Iran.
- The performance aired on Coachella’s official YouTube livestream, and clips spread fast online, with at least one X video topping 3.7 million views overnight.
- Screens named leaders tied to past interventions and showed a slide stating the U.S. government was found liable for Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder in a 1999 civil verdict, a claim the Justice Department later said evidence did not support.
- The closing captions included “Over 30 universities destroyed in Iran,” a figure reported by Iran’s Ministry of Science and Technology, and the demolition of Gaza’s last standing university, identified by outlets as Al-Israa University in 2024.
- Festival organizers have not issued a public response, while the band moves ahead with a world tour and a June 26 album release, as coverage across outlets highlights both the verified historical episodes and the contested assertions in the montage.