Nobody Should Have Been Surprised

First of all, my personal opinion on Israel and Palestine really isn’t the point here. For the record, I generally fall on the pro-Israel side, but there’s a bigger issue in this whole mess, and it has nothing to do with which side you take. If you hire Macklemore to open for Ed Sheeran, you have to know what you’re getting. You just have to.

Macklemore is one of the most outspoken pro-Palestinian artists out there, and he hasn’t exactly kept it a secret. In May 2024 he released a protest anthem called “Hind’s Hall.” The title comes from Columbia University, where pro-Palestinian protesters occupied Hamilton Hall and renamed it after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed in Gaza. By the time Macklemore was announced as Sheeran’s opening act on August 24 of this year, that song had been out for more than two years. He doesn’t just say Free Palestine and walk off the stage; he creates an entire experience for the cause. During his shows at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, he said Free Palestine, accused Israel of genocide, put images from Gaza up on the big screens, and performed that song. A lot of people felt that kind of rhetoric crossed the line into antisemitism. Whatever you think of it, though, it wasn’t a new position for Macklemore, and nobody should have fallen out of their chair.

But the outrage escalated fast. Robert Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium, announced that Macklemore would not be performing at the September 25 and 26 concerts there. According to the Boston Globe, he went even further and rallied other stadium owners, and together they told Sheeran’s people that if Macklemore stayed on the tour, Sheeran couldn’t play their stadiums either. The promoter, Messina Touring Group, dropped Macklemore, and Sheeran has made clear that decision was the promoter’s, not his.

Kraft said his objection wasn’t simply about Macklemore supporting Palestinians. He pointed to the artist’s recent actions, material shared from the stage in New Jersey, and what he called a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery. Critics point back to 2014, when Macklemore performed in a costume with a big prosthetic nose that many saw as a Jewish caricature. Macklemore rejects the accusation that his advocacy is antisemitic.

Nobody has said publicly who actually picked Macklemore for this tour. Even if it wasn’t Sheeran himself, it’s hard to believe anyone on his team didn’t know exactly who they were adding to the bill. And then it escalated again, when Finneas, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe, and even Sheeran’s own backing band quit the tour in solidarity with Macklemore.

Here’s where I want to be fair to everybody, because there are really three ways to look at this. If Kraft is right that something on this tour crossed a line Macklemore hadn’t crossed before, then Kraft has a legitimate gripe and no obligation to host it; supporting Palestinians is one thing, and hate speech is another. And if Macklemore was hired with a provision that he keep his politics tame, and he broke it, then Kraft and the promoter have every reason to be upset and to do exactly what they did. Some surprises are best left backstage. But if what Macklemore did in New Jersey is what he’s been doing publicly all along, then none of it was news, and all of it was knowable before anybody signed a contract. In that case Kraft’s position is a lot harder to understand. He’s a billionaire with a whole organization of people whose job is knowing what shows up on his stage. Somebody should have told him, and ignorance is not a strong bargaining chip.

Either way, notice who didn’t change. Macklemore didn’t suddenly get political on the Ed Sheeran tour, and Robert Kraft didn’t suddenly become a defender of Israel and the Jewish community. Both of those men were being exactly who they’ve always been, which means there shouldn’t have been any surprises here, and certainly no reason for a big public meltdown.

It would be like booking Bruce Springsteen and being stunned when he talks politics, or booking Cher and being shocked by an outrageous outfit. Springsteen has been openly political for decades and has recently made criticism of the Trump administration part of his show. Cher hasn’t been demure since… perhaps ever, and she’s been every bit as politically provocative as she is in costume. You don’t have to like how any of them conduct their performances, but if you’re the promoter, you have to know who your clients are and what you’re promoting.

To me, that’s the centrist position. A promoter, a stadium owner, or an artist has every right to say we don’t want politics at this show, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You can also decide somebody is simply too controversial for the event you’re putting on. If that’s your policy, great, don’t hire Macklemore. For that matter, don’t hire Bruce or countless other artists either. But hiring him and then getting rid of him when he does exactly what everybody knew he would do isn’t a policy; it’s a mess. And look how big the mess got.

I’d say one thing about Kraft too, even as somebody who lands on his side of the Israel issue. Deciding what does or doesn’t happen at your own stadium is your right. You bought it, you own it, and it’s your call. Getting the other stadium owners together to make sure your call plays out (or doesn’t play, as the case may be) at everybody else’s stadium is a much bigger swing, and big swings invite big swings back. Which is exactly what happened.

That’s the whole problem with this country in one concert tour. Macklemore rants about genocide, Kraft organizes an ultimatum, the promoter drops him, and four acts walk out. Every single move felt justified to the person making it, and every single move made the whole fiasco bigger.

Personally, I don’t want a ton of politics mixed into my entertainment, and I don’t care whether it’s coming from the left or the right. When I go to a concert, watch a football game, or turn on a TV show, most of the time I’m looking for entertainment, not another political argument. There’s enough of that everywhere else.

It’s a little like explicit sex in movies and television. I’m not offended by it; I just don’t need it thrown into everything I watch. If I wanted to watch porn, I would just watch porn, and at least everybody knows what they’re getting when they click over to PornHub. I don’t need a surprise naked makeout session in my police procedural, especially not the one I’m watching with the wife and kids.

Concerts aren’t much different. If you’re putting on a political concert, great; tell people what it is and let them buy a ticket. If you’re putting on a concert that’s supposed to be an escape from politics, that’s fine too, so hire performers who fit that mold. Nobody likes being blindsided after spending a week’s salary on a night out with friends and loved ones.

Macklemore and Kraft can hold the positions they hold. The lesson for promoters is pretty simple: decide what kind of show you’re putting on, research your acts, and set the rules before the artist walks onto the stage. Then nobody ends up shocked by something that was entirely predictable.

And let’s give a little credit to the real man in the middle of all this, Ed Sheeran. All the guy wanted was to stay out of the fight and put on a great show for his fans, and he ended up losing his opening acts and his own band over a battle he never picked. So here’s my suggestion for those of us in the reasonable middle: put on an Ed Sheeran song tonight in solidarity with the man. I’d go with “Thinking Out Loud.” It seems appropriate.