The Ballad of Ed Sheeran, or: There's No Such Thing As a Helpless Headliner

Happy Friday from Stems! This week we’re wading into a not even remotely undercovered story on the live scene. Hit us up with feedback and hot tips at [email protected].

The only conversation I’ve had with Ed Sheeran was when Atlantic was doing listening sessions for 2014’s x. A Rolling Stone colleague and I sat with him and a couple of other folks in the control room of Electric Lady Studios while they played a few songs; I have a vague memory of amiably mentioning that I heard echoes of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” on “Thinking Out Loud” (alas, I would not be the first one). What struck me was how business savvy and in control Sheeran seemed; he ran through the upcoming marketing and promotion drumbeats of his album campaign like a pro, something most artists wouldn’t do in front of music journalists they had just met. It was kind of refreshing; to be commercially successful these days, artists need to own the business aspects of their career. So why pretend you don’t?

I thought of this in light of Sheeran not owning the decision to drop opener Macklemore from his stadium tour this week after the rapper’s passionate “Free Palestine” speeches at two MetLife Stadium dates earlier this month. Instead, Sheeran blamed his promoter, Messina Touring Group, for the decision. Messina, in turn, blamed unspecified venues, which Macklemore says were NFL team owners led by billionaire Robert Kraft, who threatened to cancel upcoming shows if Macklemore was on the bill.

People I talked to in the concert biz have some sympathy for Sheeran. “He was put into an impossible situation,” says one concert biz insider who didn’t want his name used. “I don't think he could win for trying, you know? Face Robert Kraft down or get rid of Macklemore. This isn't what he signed up for.” Sheeran has since committed $2 million to Palestinian aid organizations, and enlisted Kraft to do the same; Macklemore has donated $1 million.

We do think Sheeran’s “blame the promoter” strategy was a little squirrelly, though. Yes, promoters do have clout — they front the money for the tour and are the vessel through which everybody gets paid — but if you are a superstar artist, the promoter is more or less working for you. Messina has handled Sheeran’s tours for more than a decade; its job is to do all the things that Sheeran and his team don’t want to do: negotiate venue deals, hire local crews, handle permits, settle the books after each show, and, in this case, apparently, take the blame for firing Macklemore. It’s inconceivable that Messina would remove an opener from a stadium bill against the wishes of its headliner, who as one entertainment lawyer recently told the AP, “at the end of the day … is going to have approval over everything.”

With the possible exception of K-pop, where indentured-servitude style contracts are still a thing, big artists have more power today than they’ve ever had. Whatever his feelings about Israel and Gaza, Sheeran had options; he could have defended Macklemore’s right to express himself and called the team owners’ bluff, or even tried to reroute the tour. “It would have been really hard,” says our source. “Most things are already booked, especially on the weekends; if you're in Foxborough, Mass., where do you go? And it would probably have ended up in court or with lawyers, which everybody wants to avoid.” But if it had gone that way, Sheeran might have had a free speech case. Kraft privately owns Gillette Stadium, but at least two of the stadiums that the billionaire enlisted in his potential boycott are co-owned by public entities, which free speech advocates say could have made this a First Amendment issue.

Of course, it’s easy to second-guess. But it’s hard to imagine a worse situation than the current one, with Sheeran making the wrong kind of global news after the remaining openers and his backing band quit the tour in protest; losing hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers; and watching ticket prices to future tour dates sag. “This is also a failure of management,” says the source. “Seeing around corners is a manager's job. Ed Sheeran's team is on tour with him and they see the rehearsals; nobody was blindsided. They just didn't anticipate the reaction.”

Unfortunately, that’s something he has no choice but to own.

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