Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour Goes Solo: No Band, No Openers, and His "Best Show of My Life"

Ed Sheeran walked into Philadelphia on September 19 with a tour that looked nothing like the one fans bought tickets for. Macklemore had already been removed from the Loop tour after a“free Palestine”speech at Gillette Stadium, and when FINNEAS, Lukas Graham, Aaron Rowe, Beoga, BIIRD and Myles Smith all left in solidarity, Sheeran found himself with no support acts and no backing band. He scrapped his B-stage setup over safety concerns about crowd anger and pieced together a new group of musicians to keep the show alive.

On stage, Sheeran didn’t dodge the moment. He told the crowd that what’s happening in Gaza is“catastrophic, unjustifiable, and disproportionate,”apologized for mistakes, and said he is not complicit in the conflict. By the end of the night, he called it honestly the best show of his life, and he’s vowed to keep the tour rolling for fans despite calls to cancel. The internet, of course, is split. Sheeran lost over 200,000 Instagram followers, while Macklemore gained more than 1.6 million after donating his $1 million tour earnings to Palestinians, with Robert Kraft matching that with $2 million.

So the Loop tour is now the Ed Sheeran solo experience, and the bigger question is hanging in the air: should artists face consequences for what they say on stage, or should the stage be exactly where these conversations happen? Drop your take in the comments, we’re reading all of them.