Macklemore turned his opening slot on Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour into a pro-Palestinian statement two nights running at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, and now a petition is asking Sheeran to cut him from the rest of the tour.
At Friday’s show, Macklemore told the roughly 80,000 people in the stadium he wanted people in Gaza and the West Bank to know “they have not been forgotten,” then performed his 2024 protest song “Hind’s Hall” while wearing a keffiyeh as footage from Gaza played on the video screens. He repeated the same routine at Saturday’s show.
The petition and the pushback
The Israeli-American Council launched a petition afterward calling on Sheeran to drop Macklemore from the remaining tour dates, arguing the concert “was an Ed Sheeran concert, not a political rally, not a protest, and not an activist event,” and asking where the line should be drawn when an opener uses someone else’s stage to push a one-sided message. The petition had gathered thousands of signatures within a day.
Critics online piled on in the same direction, with plenty of fans saying they paid for a pop show, not a rally, and that Sheeran owes his audience some explanation for letting it happen twice.
Macklemore’s response
Macklemore addressed the criticism directly from the stage, telling the Jewish community that his remarks were “in no way” a criticism of them personally, and that his message was about peace and treating all human beings with dignity and equality. He’s leaned into “Hind’s Hall” as a centerpiece of his live shows since releasing it in 2024, named for a Palestinian girl killed in Gaza, and has kept performing it at other stops despite the controversy it tends to generate.
Sheeran hasn’t publicly commented on the petition or said whether Macklemore will keep opening for the remaining Loop Tour dates. Concert openers picking political fights with their own audience isn’t new, but doing it twice at the same arena, in front of the same headliner, tends to force the question of whether the headliner is fine with it or just hasn’t said so yet.
Sources: Variety · Jewish Telegraphic Agency · TMZ
