Rock 'n' roll not born to run

Madonna was in Stockholm a week after this Prague concert, rallying her fans in a singalong. Photo / AP

The power of music to unite is exactly what the murderous terrorists at the Bataclan wanted to stop.

Are rock bands running scared from Europe? Foo Fighters, Deftones and Prince have all cancelled tours following the Paris attacks. Just when you want musicians to stand up and be counted, they seem to be fleeing in the face of terror.

"Do I stay and run away and leave it all behind?" Dave Grohl sings on the Foo Fighters anthem Times Like These before concluding: "It's times like these we learn to live again." Imagine what that would have sounded like in the Paris arena where the beloved American rock band was due to play on Monday night? But the show has not gone on. The band posted a message on Facebook: "In light of this senseless violence, the closing of borders, and international mourning, we can't continue right now. There is no other way to say it."

But there are other ways to say it. At Wembley Stadium, 80,000 football fans from France and England sang La Marseillaise, bellowing out "Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'etendard sanglant est leve" - Against us tyranny raises its bloody banner.

Last Saturday, Madonna performed in Stockholm, beautifully articulating the unease and defiance of an entertainer at a time of tragedy. "I feel torn. Why am I up here dancing and having fun when people are crying over the loss of their loved ones? However, that is exactly what [these terrorists] want to do. They want to silence us, and we won't let them. We will never let them." She then led the crowd in a singalong of Like A Prayer. I can imagine what that felt like, tens of thousands raising their voices in amity among like-minded souls. Music is a powerful rallying point, an art form with unity at its very core. A moment like this is precisely when a concert hall should be full rather than empty. After all, the power of music to unite is exactly what these nihilistic terrorists planned to disrupt.

The slaughter at the Bataclan is unprecedented. There have, of course, been violent incidents at concerts, from the murderous Hell's Angels attack at the Rolling Stones Altamont free festival in 1969 to rioting by Metallica and Guns N' Roses fans in Montreal in 1992. But this targeted killings of fans is different. The Eagles of Death Metal, who were on stage when the murderers struck on Friday night, play the kind of raucous, melodic, uplifting music that makes you want to shake your body and sing at the top of your voice. Their name is gently self-mocking. No wonder Isis (Islamic State) hate such performers - the ability to laugh at oneself is beyond them.

Is this the clash of civilisations reduced to the petty meanness of particularly violent party poopers, determined that if they can't have a good time, no one else will? Some Muslim fundamentalists seem to loathe culture in general and music in particular. The use of music is, at best, a grey area in Koranic law, with reductive interpretations claiming that music should only be made to worship Allah; others forbid music altogether.

Under the Taliban rule of Afghanistan it was a crime to possess a radio. When Sharia was imposed on parts of Northern Mali in 2012 during the civil war, musical expression was outlawed, punishable by death. Militants destroyed recording studios, dismantled radio stations and amputated the limbs of people caught playing instruments. This is a vision Isis would impose on the rest of us: a world without melody. It is how a bunch of mad zealots can convince themselves that unarmed kids listening to a favourite band are legitimate military targets.

This is not our way. Music is the very rhythm of western life. The Bataclan massacre was, as the U2 singer Bono put it, a "direct hit on music".

It is the nature of terrorism to hit where it hurts. So if bands shy away from touring Europe, if audiences grow fearful of gathering to watch them, we will all suffer. This is when we need musicians to sing up and be counted.