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Ed Sheeran was joined by his first special guest on his beleaguered U.S. tour after all of his support acts withdrew over the Macklemore controversy.
The Fray’s former frontman, Isaac Slade, 45, performed an opening set before Sheeran’s headline performance at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday, playing hits like “How to Save a Life” and “You Found Me.”
Sheeran had performed his last three tour dates without any special guests or support acts after musicians – including Finneas and Lukas Graham – all ditched the tour in solidarity with rapper Macklemore, who was removed from the tour last month over his “Free Palestine” remarks onstage in New Jersey.
On Saturday night, Slade, from Colorado, went on to share his own opinions on the war in Gaza, calling on people to “step into that middle place, that common ground.”
“What’s happening over there [in Gaza] is wrong, but if we’re going to get through it, we’re going to need people to step into that middle place, that common ground,” he said, according to videos of the concert.
“That bonfire in the middle of the field that sees both sides, that understands that peace is not a lack of conflict. Peace is not a blank canvas that we need to guard and be polite.”
“[Peace] holds enough beauty, enough tragedy, enough sorrow, enough joy and life if we learn how to integrate it and hold each other in balance. We will find a way through this together,” Slade added.
Slade, who departed The Fray in 2022, had joined Sheeran onstage before the Macklemore fallout, at a concert in Toronto in August.
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Sheeran’s apolitical image has been under scrutiny after the British singer insisted in a social media post that he was “not complicit” and that he would not be drawn into a public debate about the Gaza war.
He said it was the “promoter’s decision” to remove Macklemore. Sheeran had personally received a call from Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft, who had said the rapper could no longer perform at his venue due to his pro-Palestine remarks.
Protesters gathered outside Sheeran’s first concert without Macklemore on September 19.
The controversy has sparked something of a movement in the music industry. On Friday night, country musician Zach Bryan wore a “Free Palestine” shirt during his concert at Kraft’s stadium in Massachusetts.
His guitarist, Noah Le Gros, wore a Palestine soccer jersey onstage alongside Bryan, and later shared a picture of himself in the shirt standing in front of a Kraft Sports and Entertainment sign at the Massachusetts stadium.
Macklemore responded to the situation by announcing a “Free Palestine” tour with unnamed special guests, with proceeds from the shows in Paris, London and Dublin going to organizations supporting Palestinians.
Sheeran said onstage on Sept. 19 that he was “so sorry” for disappointing fans.
He clarified his own stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, saying, “What happened in Israel, and at the music festival on Oct. 7th, was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate.”