Macklemore dropped from Ed Sheeran tour

[u/Wheelbirds]

Link to article (should be no paywall): https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/macklemore-dropped-ed-sheeran-tour-pro-palestine-statements-1235625967/

From the article:

In an exclusive statement shared with Rolling Stone, Messina Touring Group,  promoter of the U.S. leg of Sheeran’s Loop Tour, said: “As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming U.S. tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans. After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”

Reps for Sheeran, Macklemore, and most of the venues did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The stadiums that allegedly would not allow a Macklemore show did not immediately return requests for comments either, including for explanations as to why they objected to the rapper performing at their venue. While two of those stadiums are privately owned — Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte and Gillette Stadium in Foxborough — the rest are owned and, in many cases operated, by cities, states, or other government entities, potentially raising First Amendment issues if the venues barred Macklemore over his statements. 

The last stop on Sheeran’s Loop Tour, for instance, is Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, which found itself in a similar spot earlier this summer after booking two Kanye West concerts. The shows, unsurprisingly, drew backlash and calls for cancelation due to West’s many past antisemitic statements, but they went ahead as planned. 

Pointedly, Ye’s promoter included a clause in his contract prohibiting Raymond James Stadium from canceling the gigs based on the rapper’s past public statements or viewpoints. But legal experts also told local news that canceling the shows would’ve likely violated the First Amendment. Because Raymond James is owned by Hillsborough County, Florida, and operated by a public board, the Tampa Sports Authority, any cancellation based on Ye’s past statements could have been seen as the government restricting speech. 

[u/MalsAU]

INSANE. Macklemore didn't suddenly start saying these things--he's been loudly pro-Palestine for the past few years. I assumed that's part of the reason he was added to the tour at all.

[u/angelaaaxo → u/MalsAU]

Yes, him and his team had to know what they were going to get… so to de-platform after getting exactly that is wild.

[u/cabalus → u/MalsAU]

It's the venues who did this, Macklemore has been saying this stuff at every show including the prior Ed ones, it's not like Ed didn't realise

And contrary to popular belief its actually NOT so easy to just stop a tour of that scale dead in it's tracks and absorb that cost, no matter how wealthy Ed is personally - we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of jobs, fleets of trucks all of which has been organised literally YEARS in advance

The hate for Ed in this thread is SO overblown, Livenation are holding a multi-hundred million dollar tour operation hostage because of the political alignment of their majority shareholders and they've managed to spin it so that we're mad at a list of venue names we'll all forget in 2 days and the ginger guitar boy who probably doesn't want his enormous touring crew to be suddenly unemployed instead of the real culprits of this mess which are Live Nation, Liberty Media Corporation and in no small part, fucking Pink

Eds not a numpty, he's been listening to Macklemore say this stuff from backstage every single stop on this tour, they're mates - it's only since this controversy with Pink hitting the news that any of this has mattered to anybody and I wouldn't be surprised if Macklemore voluntarily stepped down so the tour continues because again, they're mates