With the skyline of night-time London in the background, Declan McKenna recently took to the stage to perform for ‘Climate Live’. As of yet, the event’s YouTube channel has only released the singer-songwriter’s performance of ‘British Bombs’, but the full set will be available to watch from 8pm BST on April 28th.
‘Climate Live’ is an exclusive series of live music concerts that is scheduled to run from April 24th to October 16th 2021. Organised and announced by a collection of music artists and activists – including Declan McKenna – the concerts will take place across 43 countries. Mckenna’s recent performance was the first in this international series, with Groove Armada, Milky Chance, and many more also set to perform in the coming months.
The motivation and aims of ‘Climate Live’ were explained in a statement: “Led by members of Friday for Future youth climate groups, who organise the school strikes started by Greta Thunberg and supported by Music Declares Emergency, Greenpeace and many more, ‘Climate Live’ is bringing artists, activists and young people from across the world together through music to unite in the fight for climate justice and the race to safeguard the future of the planet.”
Often wrestling with the crises of modernity, Mckenna’s music represents the attitudes, aspirations, and bugbears of Gen-Z; a generation that refuses to subscribe to the notion that: “That’s just the way it is”. Whilst the song sends a different message, the overtly political sentiment of ‘British Bombs‘ was a fitting accompaniment to the ‘Climate Live’ concert.
Discussing the track back in 2019 with NME, Mckenna said, “I think too often it’s implied that matters in the world are too complex to not end up with war, or to not possess and sell weapons, and I just think it is pure bullshit. Not only do we still engage in wars far away from our homes, which settle nothing and fuel extremism in the aftermath, we sell weapons to other countries full well knowing where they end up. I wanted to write a song that was outright against war, in any form.”
Two years on and in an equally defiant manner, the 22-year-old has recently discussed the political motivations for his ‘Climate Live’ performance: “The question I’d ask world leaders is what disaster are we waiting for? There’s so much reason and so much cause to change the way we’re doing things right now and why wait? Why wait to act on this? We really are already seeing the impacts of climate change, of temperatures rising all around the world. We are already seeing the impact of pollution, the impact of all of this stuff for many years now – why wait? Why wait to do something massive?”
Assured and eloquent, the role that McKenna will play in the lives of a generation of teenagers and young adults is likely to stretch far beyond music. The role that he has already played in setting up the ‘Climate Live’ concerts is simply an indicator for what is about to come.
Watch Declan Mckenna’s performance of ‘British Bombs’ for ‘Climate Live’ below:
