U2 Backs Macklemore in Censorship Fight: "No Billionaire Has the Right to Censor Anybody"

The Macklemore and Ed Sheeran tour fallout just pulled in one of the biggest bands on the planet. U2’s The Edge told BBC News that the band fully supports Macklemore’s right as an artist to say what he wanted to say, after Macklemore was removed from Sheeran’s US Loop Tour in September for saying“Free Palestine”and performing“Hind’s Hall”at MetLife Stadium. Billionaire Robert Kraft and the Israeli-American Council criticized the remarks, and promoters pulled Macklemore from the run. Sheeran’s backing band and support acts, including Finneas, Lukas Graham and Beoga, withdrew in solidarity.

Then Larry Mullen Jr. made the band’s position impossible to miss: no billionaire, no promoter, no owner has the right to censor anybody. The Edge also defended Sheeran, saying he shouldn’t be vilified for a situation that spiraled well beyond him. It’s a rare moment of a legacy act stepping directly into a live controversy instead of sidestepping it, and it keeps the free speech debate in music front and center.

Meanwhile, Macklemore claims nine major US arenas refused to host his Free Palestine benefit concerts, which turns this from a single tour story into a bigger question about venue power. U2 releases“Carnaval De Luz”on November 13, so they’ll be in the news cycle either way. Where do you land: should venue owners have any say over what happens on stage?