Ed Sheeran's Opening Acts Quit Tour Over Macklemore

Ed Sheeran was left on Tuesday without any of the acts who were due to open his remaining shows. Finneas, Aaron Rowe, Lucas Graham and the Irish band Beoga withdrew from the tour one after another, The National reports. The reason was the same for all four: support for rapper Macklemore, who had been dropped from the same tour’s lineup a few days earlier.

On September 4, while performing as Sheeran’s opening act at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Macklemore addressed the crowd with a message of support for Palestine. He said the people of Gaza and the occupied West Bank should know that “we have not forgotten about them,” then added, “free Palestine.” He was subsequently removed from the remaining dates of the tour, which is being staged under the name Loop.

Several stadium owners refused to host the show while Macklemore remained on the bill, among them Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, where Sheeran had a concert scheduled. The Israeli-American Council had earlier launched a petition calling for the rapper’s removal. Sheeran said the decision had not been his to make. “Macklemore’s removal from the tour was the promoter’s decision, not mine,” he wrote on Instagram in a statement addressing the situation. He added that he had spent the previous week trying to “smooth things over” with all sides, without success, and that he did not want to let down either the audience or the crew whose livelihoods depend on the tour.

An hour after Sheeran’s statement, responses from the other performers began arriving. Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother and a Grammy and Oscar winner, canceled six shows scheduled in South America for November. “Artists can’t stay silent when they’re speaking up for the oppressed,” he wrote on Instagram in a post announcing his withdrawal from the tour, adding that he stood with Palestine and its people.

Aaron Rowe pulled out of his ten remaining North American dates, despite having previously described Sheeran as a friend who had “changed his life.” He wrote that as an Irishman he knew well “what genocide, starvation and violent occupation mean,” and that he could not stay silent while wealthy people used their position to silence those speaking out against it. Beoga, the Irish band that has played as Sheeran’s backing band for more than a decade, withdrew from the remaining American dates, citing “the silencing of Macklemore by Zionist lobbies” as the reason, but said it would not change their friendship with the singer. Danish pop group Lucas Graham also left the tour, with frontman Lukas Forchhammer saying that people should be able to talk about civilian casualties of war no matter where they live, and that money gives no one the right to speak for others.

Macklemore spoke out himself after being dropped from the tour, saying he did not regret what he had said in front of a crowd of 90,000. “I didn’t need ten shows with Ed. I needed two,” he wrote on Instagram in a statement about being removed from the tour. He added that those two shows had been enough for him to say words that, he said, had become too dangerous to say out loud, and that it had been “the most successful tour I’ve ever had,” even though it cost him his spot on stage.

Robert Kraft defended his decision not to host Macklemore at Gillette Stadium, citing what he called the rapper’s “recent actions” and a “broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery” that he said was deeply offensive to the Jewish community. At the same time, he said he would welcome the chance to meet Macklemore in person, since everyone shares the same goal: peace for all people and an end to hatred.

Some reports describe all four acts as opening acts, but The National draws a distinction: Finneas, Aaron Rowe and Lucas Graham were billed as opening acts, while Beoga served as Sheeran’s backing band throughout the tour. This is the first time we have covered the dispute surrounding the Loop tour.