Ed Sheeran’s weekend concerts at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, have been called off, with stadium and tour management pointing to a severe weather forecast along the East Coast rather than the political firestorm that has engulfed the tour in recent weeks.
According to reporting from The Daily Wire, Sheeran had been scheduled to perform Friday and Saturday at the venue owned by Robert Kraft, the longtime New England Patriots owner. A representative for the singer told TMZ that an approaching nor’easter was to blame.
“Stadium and tour management, along with public safety officials, have been closely monitoring the weather forecast over the past week. Due to the severe weather forecast throughout the weekend, the tour has made the difficult decision to cancel the Ed Sheeran concerts at Gillette Stadium,” a representative for Kraft told the outlet.
The statement emphasized that the decision was driven by safety considerations for everyone involved and that refunds are available at the point of purchase. Fans who bought tickets through Ticketmaster will be refunded automatically.
A Canceled Show With a Complicated Backdrop
For a stadium tour, a weather cancellation is hardly unusual. What makes this one awkward is timing.
The Gillette dates had already become the center of a public dispute after Macklemore was removed as Sheeran’s opening act. Kraft said earlier this month that Macklemore’s performance at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — where the rapper shouted “Free Palestine” from the stage and displayed footage from Gaza — along with what Kraft described as his “broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery,” made him unwelcome at Gillette.
Kraft is Jewish, and Macklemore publicly blamed him for orchestrating the removal. The rapper also criticized Sheeran for staying out of the fight, writing that “there is no neutral position between the oppressor and the oppressed.” On Thursday, Macklemore announced a “Free Palestine” tour set to begin next month.
Sheeran, for his part, has kept performing since the turmoil began, and addressed it directly from the stage last weekend in Philadelphia. As anti-Israel protesters gathered outside the venue, he told the crowd he had never set out to be an activist musician — but found himself caught in the middle of an argument about free speech and one of the world’s most intractable political disputes.
He described it as “one of the worst weeks” of his life, according to The Daily Wire’s account.
“I have tried in my career not to be a political commentator of any kind, because I want my music and shows to be about unity, not division, about humanity, not politics,” Sheeran said.
He was visibly emotional as he discussed the possibility of ending the tour entirely, telling fans, “In these situations, you really find out who your friends are.”
“I have so many people telling me to cancel this tour and so many people falling out of my life that I’ve known for years and years and years, people just kind of backing away,” he continued. “And then, you know, I’m there, and everyone’s telling me to cancel, and I’m feeling my friends and family, and people I know, abandon me.”
In the end, he told the crowd, “If this tour ends, love doesn’t win.”
What Happens Next
For fans inclined to read the Gillette cancellation as something more than meteorology, the coming weeks may be the real test.
Sheeran’s official Loop Tour schedule lists a show in Atlanta on October 3, followed by six more dates, with the tour wrapping up in Tampa on November 7. If the tour continues as planned, the weather explanation will likely hold up as the simplest one — and the Gillette shows will go down as a storm-related one-off rather than the end of the road.
The episode does leave some lingering questions about how far a venue owner’s political judgments can reach into a touring artist’s business. Kraft barred Macklemore from his building. Macklemore accused him of engineering his removal from the tour. Sheeran, who has repeatedly said he wants his shows to be about unity rather than politics, has found that answer increasingly difficult to sustain while the dispute swirls around him.
For now, two stadium shows in Foxborough are simply off, with refunds in motion and a nor’easter bearing down on the region. Whether the tour’s bigger storm has passed is a question the next month of shows will answer.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/ed-sheeran-concerts-canceled-at-robert-krafts-stadium