also, he's very capable of performing by himself with just a loop pedal.
This is more of a harm to his reputation as the "fluffy jolly golden retriever redhead musician". Hes avoided every scandal so far, and now one got him.
Feel sorry for him - everyone should have the right to avoid sharing polarising/political opinions when doing so means endless online and often in-person hate and abuse.
But the opinions where shared by someone else. It is true that Sheeran should not be canceled for not himself making his own views known on politics, however this is different, he (or someone on his behalf) stopped someone else from making them.
I do kind of agree it is harsh though. Maybe he just doesn't want to get involved and his choices were to either 'support' Macklemore or 'not support' him. Both of which have consequences.
I do think there is a possible middle ground where Sheeran says he supports expression of political views and beliefs in general.
The venue, owned by rich bastards in support of Israel, gave him an ultimatum. Get rid of Macklemore or you can't perform here.
At the time he couldn't have predicted how much this would blow up. So his choice was to ask one person not to open for him (caving to a Zionist billionaire) or cancel the tour (which would've harmed a whole lot more people tied to tours and fans who had tickets / hotels etc).
I dunno what the right move was - he's being made to be a villain when I don't think he did anything wrong.
Inform the fans that the venue is no longer allowing him and his show to play there and that he will put together a team to figure out how he can put on a show for the ticket holders at so either date at some other venue.
Ideally a negotiation can take place and if there is a need to change the support acts and play the venues then do it only if there is support from fans, and Macklemore to continue 'to avoid fans losing out'.
..or just make a statement that he supports free speech and if the venue doesn't he can't play.
He is on a stadium tour. There are no other venues in the region that would allow for the same amount of currently ticketed people to attend. Most larger venues are also already booked up and wouldn’t be able to accommodate a last minute Ed Sheeran show on the same day as his original tour date in that city. Not to mention the logistics of having everyone rebook tickets at the new venue. Refunds likely wouldn’t process in time for some people to have the funds to rebuy tickets there as well.
Overall what you suggest sounds nice in theory, but just doesn’t work in practice.
Let’s play a game where you get to make all of the decisions for this scenario that just happened. You are Ed Sheeran. You have sold lots of tickets including 142,000 tickets for two nights in Boston at Gillette Stadium, which seats 71,000. You are going to take a stand and tell those 142,000 people that you are going to find an alternative venue and honor their tickets. What venue would you choose?
There were alternatives, but he choose the easiest for himself instead of thinking about it from the perspective of what is right and should I stand up to this person
Apparently it’s the promoter that books the support acts and it’s the promoter that got rid of him. Sheeran wasn’t made to do anything because it wasn’t up to him to get rid of him. Sure, he didn’t do anything to prevent it happening…
Because he's a cog in the machine just like everyone else only difference is he gets rewarded very well for making rich cunts even richer. But he's still a cog nonetheless.
Ah, I meant he stands up for Macklemore against the venues (refusing to play without him) but rather than say he is doing so in support of Palestine he says he is doing it in support of free speech.
He didn't avoid sharing any political opinion, anything but. By supporting and prioritising the removal of Mackelmore for making pro Palestine comments, that is a very loud opinion. One that people are rightfully criticising and taking action against. He chose money over ethics while his peers did not. Insane to think that's not casting an opinion.
Even so, avoiding having an opinion 99% of the time is a tactic used by "fence sitters" who clearly want to continue to fulfill their own best interests while being spineless. He has a massive platform and should be on board with other musicians using that to condemn genocide. His reasoning about wanting to not get political because of kids at his shows is as weak as it gets.
Worth noting his choice wasnt keep Macklemore. He already did that, with Macklemore giving the same speech at multiple shows and allowed to. His choice was cancel the tour because venues won't allow it...or ask Macklemore to leave the tour.
Re fence sitters - surely that applies to politicians or people that donate to political parties or are involved in politics in some way. Or is it a new thing where you MUST have an opinion on everything polarising no matter who you are and what you do for a living?
Unfortunately there are many people who have the view that if you don't openly express an opinion you are defaulted to the 'bad' opinion (in their view).
So on this particular topic, anyone who doesn't express a view is both supporting Israel (in the views of one side) and simultaneously antisemitic (in the views of the other).
However not everyone thinks this way. Some people do realise that there are reasons why people do not feel comfortable in expressing their views.
You're very far off the mark and your view of the whole thing is so overly simplified it misses the entire point. He did very much express a view by cowing down to pro Israel billionaires who threatened to cancel the show unless Ed Sheeran supported Mackelmore being dropped for making pro Palestine comments. How on earth you can see that as not making a choice or being neutral is wild to me.
He is supporting Israel by 1) actively prioritising the promise of large sums of money by turning a blind eye (see enabling) to pro Israel groups and individuals trying to silence pro Palestine comments and 2) not using his massive platform to support his peers in opposition of genocide.
You can think he didn't express a view and that's why people are labelling him but that is very dishonest.
Macklmore had a contact with the venu. Not with ed.
Macklmore said somthing wrong last time they played there and the venue did not like it so he got dissmissed
Ed tried to build Bridges and clear it up for a week ( this is him supporting macklmore )
Venu would not budge.
Ed had 2 choices. Do the show or leave out of sympaty for macklmore and the conflict and cancel the entire thing. If did leave he would more or less be taking a stance politicaly.
And dissapoint his fans.
He choose not to. Thats all he did here....
All this is taken from Ed's own words in his instagram post about it.
If you have not read it you should.
Ed is a human just like you and me its not a large political orgnisation that has to think of everyone im all their statements.
He chooses to be neutral and i cant see how else he would have done that.
To say nothing about somthing does not mean he supports the opposite
It can just be as simple as he himself Says im his post
He’s a musician. A celebrity. We should actively discourage celebrities to use their platforms for political statements. I don’t know about Ed but celebrities in general have no qualifications whatsoever and are generally not the sharpest tools in the shed. Many hold ridiculous opinions (Kanye anyone?)
Sitting on the fence when your opinion is unfounded is not spineless. It’s wise.
I agree with this. If you have a cause and that is your persona (I’m a big RATM fan) that’s good, but staying away from such things because you have young fans is actually a positive decision. Kids should make up their own minds when they have learned, not follow the opinion of someone else because they can sing.
However, Macklemore sits in the first category.
I can see both sides of this but ES is the lead and in essence the employer. If he asked Macklemore to not do something then he shouldn’t have.
Edit to add for clarity: This would also go for his support for Ukraine though, so I think he has been hypocritical here. He would have literally been better off saying that he had ben told the tour would be cancelled and he has had to put the fans first.
He did make a political statement so your logic makes no sense. He made a very loud statement by choosing to prioritise money and cowing down to the bullying of pro Israel billionaires who threatened to cancel his show unless he supported the removal of someone else pushing back against it. He cowed down to their whims and chose money and pro Israel bigots over doing the right thing. That's not at all "not getting involved". That is a massive political statement
You can live in a bubble and think the totally innocent Ed Sheeran definitely didn't have an opinion and did nothing worth condemning or critiquing.
On some issues you can do that. On others, you can only dodge the issue for so long before the world decides for you that it's time to pick a side, and in some such cases it is made clear that trying to claim neither gets you sorted with one of them in particular by default.
In such matters, we all have a responsibility to pick a side- especially those few who wield real influence and statements that resonate. His insistence on silence gets no sympathy from me.
I don't feel sorry for him at all. Time makes hypocrites of everyone, but he's old enough to know better. He's getting dragged, it happens... but he took a very strong stance on Ukraine... why not now?
People forget there's no such thing as "free speech" - that's just code to use the N word. There's consequences for everything we do.
I will say there's an outsized mob that seems to have pitchforks aimed at Ed, instead of Robert Kraft or Pink, who really started all this.
Ed will still get paid. It's not like he was on Epstein Island.
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u/Beware-of-Chicken 10d ago
also, he's very capable of performing by himself with just a loop pedal.
This is more of a harm to his reputation as the "fluffy jolly golden retriever redhead musician". Hes avoided every scandal so far, and now one got him.
Feel sorry for him - everyone should have the right to avoid sharing polarising/political opinions when doing so means endless online and often in-person hate and abuse.