Ed Sheeran's back-to-back concerts at Gillette Stadium this weekend have been called off. Gillette Stadium announced that the Friday and Saturday shows were being scrapped ahead of a major storm expected to bring heavy rainfall to the area, with Foxborough forecast to see 1 to 2 inches of rain and wind gusts up to 40 mph. The venue said tickets are refundable, with Ticketmaster holders set to receive automatic refunds.
Ed's promoter, Messina Touring Group, said this was a safety measure taken with the wellbeing of fans, staff and everyone involved in the shows as the top priority. The cancellations takes place as controversy continues to swirl around the tour and stadium owner Robert Kraft's role in getting Macklemore dropped from the U.S. leg over his onstage support for Palestinians.
The saga began earlier this month when Macklemore, one of Ed’s openers, took the stage at MetLife Stadium wearing a keffiyeh, performed his song "Hind's Hall" with footage from Gaza playing behind him, and told the roughly 80,000-strong crowd that people in Gaza and the West Bank “have not been forgotten”. Macklemore later said on Instagram that Robert had called Ed and threatened to bar him from Gillette Stadium if the rapper stayed on the tour, and that Robert was working to rally other stadium owners to do the same.
A statement attributed to Robert’s camp cited Macklemore's recent actions, material shared onstage during the New Jersey shows, and what it called a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery as reasoning. In the aftermath, Finneas, Irish singer Aaron Rowe, Irish band Beoga, and Danish band Lukas Graham all pulled out of the remaining tour dates in solidarity, leaving Sheeran without any opening acts.
Ed has said the decision to cut Macklemore was the promoter's call, not his own, and that he'd spent the week trying to "build a bridge" with venues before it happened. He also opened a recent Philadelphia show with an apology, though he didn't detail exactly what for.
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