The Strokes Told the Coachella Crowd Iran's LEGO War Videos Had 'More Facts Than Your Local News' Before They Were Deleted

The Strokes turned Coachella's main stage into a geopolitical indictment on Saturday night, closing Weekend 2 with a video montage that accused the CIA of decades of covert regime change and condemned ongoing US and Israeli military action in Iran and Gaza.

It was a performance that came in two acts across two weekends. At Coachella's first weekend on 11 April 2026, frontman Julian Casablancas had already signalled the band's mood, joking to the crowd that he had been 'tempted to come out tonight with a laptop and show you guys some of those Iran Lego videos' and adding: 'More facts than your local news.'

By the time the band returned for Weekend 2 on 19 April, the joke had curdled into something far more deliberate. They closed their 14-song set with 'Oblivius,' a song from their 2016 Future Present Past EP that had not been played in concert since its release year, while their LED screens rolled a video montage targeting the US government that went viral within hours. The clip surpassed 3.7 million views on X overnight, according to NBC News.

The Iran LEGO Videos That Casablancas Referenced Onstage

The 'Iran Lego videos' Casablancas referenced are a series of AI-generated animated clips produced by a group called Explosive Media, also known online as the Explosive News Team.

Modelled on the aesthetic of The Lego Movie, the clips depict geopolitical events in a way that is sympathetic to Iran and sharply critical of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They began circulating in 2025 and escalated sharply as US-Iran tensions intensified in early 2026, accumulating millions of views across X, TikTok, Instagram, and Telegram.

One video, widely shared, depicts Trump having a nightmare about the aftermath of strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure, concluding with him eating a taco, a reference to the phrase 'Trump Always Chickens Out.'

The videos were shared by the official social media accounts of Iranian officials and embassies worldwide. A representative for Explosive Media told the BBC the team has fewer than 10 members and acknowledged that the Iranian government is a client, despite earlier claims of independence.

The Oblivius Montage: CIA Coups, Martin Luther King, and Bombed Universities

When The Strokes returned to the main stage for Coachella Weekend 2, they built toward a closing sequence that bore no resemblance to their 11 April performance. The song 'Oblivius,' whose chorus repeats the line 'What side you standing on?' served as the backdrop for a rolling series of images and text.

As reported by Variety, the montage accused the CIA of involvement in the removal of multiple world leaders: Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961, Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973, and Bolivian President Juan Jose Torres in 1976, along with Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos and Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldos in 1981.

The CIA's role in the 1953 Iran coup has been confirmed by declassified US government documents and was carried out in coordination with Britain. The other cases are classified to varying degrees as suspected or alleged CIA involvement, and were presented as such by multiple outlets covering the set.

The montage also displayed an image of Martin Luther King Jr. alongside the text 'US Govt found guilty of his murder in civil trial,' a reference to the 1999 civil case King family v. Loyd Jowers, in which a Tennessee jury found Jowers and unnamed government agencies liable for King's assassination. The Department of Justice subsequently reviewed the verdict and concluded the evidence did not support a government conspiracy.

The video then shifted to footage of rubble in Iran, accompanied by the assertion that 'over 30 universities' had been destroyed, before showing what it described as the last university in Gaza being struck by an air missile. The screen faded to black, and the band walked off stage. Some outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, speculated that the visuals may have been cut short and that the ending was unplanned. Coachella organizers had not issued any public statement on the performance by the time of publication.

Coachella's Growing Record of Political Stages

The Strokes' statement lands inside a now-established pattern at Coachella. During Weekend 1 of the 2026 festival, singer Gigi Perez called for a 'free Palestine' and condemned US Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. At Coachella 2025, Northern Irish hip-hop group Kneecap performed in front of screens reading 'F--- Israel, Free Palestine,' a moment that appeared to catch Coachella organisers off-guard. At Glastonbury 2025, both Kneecap and English punk duo Bob Vylan led the crowd in chants over the same conflict.

What set The Strokes apart on 19 April was the scope and structure of the statement. Rather than a moment from the stage, it was a premeditated, produced piece of video content that ran for several minutes and encompassed US covert history from the Cold War to the present conflict in the Middle East. Coachella appeared prepared for it: unlike the Kneecap incident in 2025, long shots in the live YouTube feed made all of the band's footage clearly visible to the online audience.

For one night at Indio, one of America's most-streamed festival stages became a history lesson the mainstream news cycle had not scheduled.