‘The Pfizer Chiefs’ - Kaiser Chiefs divide Twitter with their Covid vaccine shoutout at gig

The Kaiser Chiefs didn’t predict a riot in response to their vaccine-related audience participation during their Isle of Wight festival set – but it has certainly made some noise on Twitter.

It all began when a video clip was shared on Twitter by disgruntled viewer Sara. It showed a recording of her TV screen while watching a Kaiser Chief concert. In typical frontman style, lead singer Ricky Wilson engaged with the crowd to get them amped up.

Ricky got the audience going by asking them all to put their hands in the air - “Let’s see your hands again, they’re all clean hands - you’ve been washing them?”

To which the crowd cheered in response and Ricky then turned the conversation to Covid vaccines.

He shouted: “Let me hear you, if you’ve had the Pfizer vaccine!”

There was an even bigger roar in response - but Sara was not happy, and can be heard in the background saying, “For f**k sake.”

Ricky then asked: “Let me hear it for Moderna!” followed by: “AstraZeneca?!”

On both occasions, the crowd screamed further.

But Ricky wasn’t finished yet and added: “Let’s hear it for the anti-vaxxers!” Which resorted to the crowd booing.

“Unbelievable,” Sara can be heard muttering in the background.

“That’s very good,” Ricky laughed and asked the crowd to put their hands in the air again.

“You’ve got clean hands, I can see that’s good. We’re spraying you with gel at the end,” he joked before resuming with his music.

Within the tweet, Sara wrote: “@KaiserChiefs I was a fan of yours until this very moment. #cult”

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Since then, the video has been making rounds online, and similar to Sara, some people have shared their anger at Ricky’s vaccine interactions - so much so that “The Kaiser Chiefs” began trending on Twitter.

Of course, Laurence Fox joined in on the debate.

Another Twitter user went as far as to compare the interaction to Germany in the 1930s.

Similarly, someone else described the Kaiser Chiefs as “cringe, cult crap” and added that they should change their name to “The Pfizer Chiefs.”

Meanwhile another person really hit the band where it hurt by saying, “they used to predict a riot.”

Someone else described the band as a “bunch of sellouts” and added: “Pretty sad that you sold your soul to Big Pharma.”

To be honest, “Kaiser Chiefs” and “Big Pharma” are not exactly two entities we would ever associate with one other, but here we are.

Apparently, the Kaiser Chiefs are on Bill Gates’ payroll - who knew?

On the other hand, other people were cracking up at some of the replies with anti-vaxx sentiments and actually love the band more for winding them up.

One person found the concept of Bill Gates paying the band pretty hilarious.

For some, the whole debate seems to have re-sparked an interest in the English indie rock band.