The Ed Sheeran tour walkout that followed the removal of Macklemore from the North American leg of the Loop tour has become one of the more consequential cultural flashpoints of the year, drawing in support acts, a backing band, and, improbably, Greta Thunberg. The original controversy centred on Macklemore’s opening set at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where he led the crowd in chants of ‘Free Palestine’. Several venues subsequently refused to host shows with him on the bill, with Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft among those publicly opposing his appearance.
On Monday, 14 September, Macklemore announced he had been dropped from the tour. What followed was a cascade of Notes app statements: Macklemore describing his support for Palestine as a ‘duty’; Sheeran insisting the decision belonged to his promoters and that ‘he is not complicit’. That defence did little to stem the backlash. One by one, Sheeran’s backing band and all his support acts announced they were pulling out too.
The numbers are worth sitting with. Macklemore’s follower count has reportedly jumped by one million since the Monday announcement, while Sheeran’s has fallen by close to 100,000. Statements from the departing acts have all eclipsed the likes on Sheeran’s defensive post. Then, on Thursday, ABC News reported that Macklemore had announced a ‘Free Palestine’ tour of his own, whatever the original intention behind his removal from Sheeran’s dates having produced precisely the opposite of the desired effect.
Macklemore and the Ed Sheeran Tour Walkout in Context
Macklemore’s position on Gaza is not new. In 2024, he released ‘Hind’s Hall’, named after the Columbia University building occupied by student protesters, who renamed it in honour of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, as CNN reported. The track positioned him well outside the usual calculations of commercial pop touring, which makes his inclusion on the Loop tour, in retrospect, a peculiar booking. His MetLife set was, by that measure, less a provocation than a continuation.
The broader walkout, though, belongs to the support acts. Each of the four artists who departed brings a distinct background and a distinct reason for leaving, and their statements collectively articulate something the individual social media posts only gesture at: that the question of who gets to speak on a major stage, and under what conditions, is itself a political question.
The Artists Who Left the Tour
FINNEAS was scheduled for the South American leg of the tour. In his statement, he wrote: ‘Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed.’ The most commercially visible of the departing acts, he has accumulated 21 Grammy nominations alongside Billie Eilish and holds the distinction of being the youngest recipient of the Best Producer award. His solo work sits in the indie-folk end of alternative pop, the 2024 album title track ‘For Cryin’ Out Loud’ a reasonable place to start.
Beoga are a five-piece Irish trad-folk band formed at the All-Ireland Fleadh in 2002. Their 2009 album The Incident received a Grammy nomination for best contemporary world music, and they co-wrote ‘Galway Girl’ on Sheeran’s 2016 album ÷, appearing with him at Glastonbury’s main stage in 2017. Their decision to withdraw cited their founding membership of Irish Artists for Palestine. ‘To play in venues that silence anyone advocating for a Free Palestine is simply not an option for us,’ they wrote.
Lukas Graham are a Copenhagen-based band whose 2015 single ‘7 Years’ now stands at close to 3 billion streams. Their statement took particular aim at Robert Kraft, describing a frustration with billionaires ‘dictating free speech’. ‘Money doesn’t give you the right to own the conversation,’ they wrote. Lead singer Lukas Forchhammer has connections to Donegal, a detail that places the band within a pattern: several of the departing acts share Irish ties alongside their political ones.
Aaron Rowe, an indie-folk artist from Dublin, had a longer history with this particular tour than first appeared. According to the BBC, Rowe opened on the Australian leg of the tour earlier this year and had resumed as a support act for the US dates in June, making his withdrawal a more considered break than a reactive one. In his statement, he drew on Irish history directly: ‘As Irish people we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and occupation.’
Sheeran noted in his statement that musicians rely on him for their livelihoods, which is true, and which makes the departures more rather than less consequential. Each of these acts walked away from something real. Macklemore’s forthcoming ‘Free Palestine’ tour is the most concrete next step the story has produced so far.
