r/Music • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Sep 14 '26

article Macklemore Dropped From Ed Sheeran Tour After Onstage Statements

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/macklemore-dropped-ed-sheeran-tour-pro-palestine-statements-1235625967/
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u/soonerfreak Sep 14 '26

Live Nation promotes enough concerts that they can black ball you if you don't play along. A key reason the entire company must be broken up.

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u/sumptin_wierd Sep 14 '26

they dont just promote, ticketmaster and livenation are the same company. and yes.

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u/dange616 Sep 14 '26

Not to mention actually operate and book many of the concert venues they play.

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u/LumpyPhilosopher8 Sep 14 '26

I really want them to release the venues that forced this. Was it the ones owned by Ticketmaster or independents?
Yes Ticketmaster is evil - but were they actually behind this. Then we know who to boycott

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u/BussyPalace Sep 14 '26

Macklemore's IG statement provides more details.

TLDR: Robert Kraft (of the Patriots and owner of Gillette Stadium) personally told Ed that he would not be allowed to perform at his stadium if Macklemore was part of the tour. Kraft also rounded up his other stadium owning billionaires to prohibit Macklemore from performing at their venues as well for the remainder of Ed's tour. Keep Macklemore and Ed's tour dates at those venues would be cancelled.

So Ed bent the knee to Kraft and Co.

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u/sumptin_wierd Sep 14 '26

money corrupts everything

and I am listening to dirty money by clipse haha

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u/sumptin_wierd Sep 14 '26

that guy that gets happy endings at massage parlors.

fuck Kraft

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u/Knotted_Hole69 Sep 14 '26

Yeah, ill be avoiding them for this.

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u/BBC-dont-show-BBC Sep 15 '26

So Craft will go after Mackelmore for a statement but he bends over and let's Putin steal one of his Super Bowl rings as he watches.

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u/shaqwillonill Sep 14 '26

The venues that allegedly objected to the rapper include: Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts; Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta; Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina; AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

The article blames Robert Kraft who would definitely have sway over all these venues as they are all NFL stadiums

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u/mschley2 Sep 15 '26

Lol so it was specifically all of the NFL owners

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u/excellentforcongress Sep 15 '26

it would be very unfortunate if there was a mass boycott of all major privately owned stadiums, the nfl, livenation, ticketmaster, private equity, and anything owned by any billionaires, and people abandoned all sports leagues controlled by billionaires, and allowed all of those stadiums to go bankrupt and get claimed by their respective local communities, where teams who are cooperatively owned could play, in leagues that are owned by the general public, and refused corporate advertising dollars, and ticket master live nation went bankrupt and everyone had to go to venues owned by cooperatives, with ticket sales handled by cooperatives, and all of those cooperatives actually cared about protecting human life

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u/MaxTheRealSlayer Sep 15 '26

Boycotting Ticketmaster would be like boycotting most live music. They even run many small shows

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u/sumptin_wierd Sep 16 '26

billionaires is who you boycott

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u/sumptin_wierd Sep 14 '26

you don't have to be a shill

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u/LumpyPhilosopher8 Sep 14 '26

How am I being a shill?

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u/CasperTheHomosexualF Sep 15 '26

And manage the artists. Vertical integration, baby.

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u/notjustforperiods Sep 14 '26

Macklemore's been pretty transparent about the whole thing and he says the Kraft family got enough stadium owners to band together and apply enough pressure

LiveNation is evil, obviously, but to suggest they'd play their hand and exhaust political capital for something like this is pretty silly

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u/seasnakejake Sep 15 '26

Wonder how many of those stadiums were subsidized with tax dollars

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u/TheHumanoidTyphoon69 Sep 14 '26

Good news, ticket master has been in court for keeping a monopoly over the industry, LiveNation might actually get broken up

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u/noc_user Sep 15 '26

There’s a shady AF settlement in the Ticketmaster trial and it reeks of backroom deal.

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u/MaxTheRealSlayer Sep 15 '26

I thought that was thrown out and they just had to pay some states a few million dollars (even though Ticketmaster and livenation is a worldwide company)?

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u/TheHumanoidTyphoon69 Sep 15 '26

If it was within the last few days Im unaware of it, I know they've had multiple suits but this was a little over a week ago

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u/No_Tomato2006 Sep 15 '26

ah yes, pay some money to the politicians to keep fucking the people. just gotta get their palms greased. hope you're wrong but fear you're not

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u/MaxTheRealSlayer Sep 15 '26 edited Sep 15 '26

Okay so we were both right in a way:

https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/judiciary-democrats-challenge-doj-s-live-nation-ticketmaster-settlement-urge-court-to-investigate-trump-administration-s-backroom-deal

Many states rejected the settlement of hundreds of millions total earlier this year-they were found liable for being an illegal monopoly but the DOJ didn't force a breakup, and settled instead. The 30 someodd states are demanding to trash the spring verdict, and to have a retrial and also look into why tf a settlement was offered to give each state a few million dollars.

Seems like it was upper politicians ...like the fed administration that likely greased their palms in some corrupt deal that fucks the majority of people on earth. It's actually disgusting how they tried to sell out everyone for a few cents per human on earth

Apologies, I didn't know there was an update since the spring verdict. Didn't know it wasn't a shut case and wasn't trying to spread misinfo. The case has been going on for two years already though and once the verdict came I got pissed off and tried to tune it out. I love going to concerts and am a musician myself, and so it drives me nuts how corrupt it has become with such artificially inflated tickets making shows less accessible just due to corporate greed

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u/No_Tomato2006 Sep 15 '26

Ah ok, well that is nice seeing that it's not settled just yet. I wouldn't be surprised if you were right about the feds, these people certainly have enough money; i'm sure there are some backroom things going on as well. Livenation is horrible to bands even, you always hear horror stories about bands selling merch at their venues and taking large cuts. Things are getting pretty depressing; other companies pay fines as operating costs and if they got their way this would be no different.

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u/ult_frisbee_chad Sep 14 '26

This is why anti monopoly laws are important.

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u/hippy_barf_day Sep 15 '26

I think the more important part is enforcement.

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u/TheTipsyWizard Sep 14 '26

Love this quote from Live nations wiki:

Live Nation is an American events promoter and venue operator based in Beverly Hills, California. Founded in 1996 by Robert F. X. Sillerman as SFX Entertainment, *the company's business was built around consolidating concert promoters into a national entity to counter the oversized influence of ticket behemoth Ticketmaster.***

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u/regman231 Sep 15 '26

They say “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” They also say “two in the hand is worth three in the pocket.” Or something. Not sure how that one applies but people still say it

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u/TheTipsyWizard Sep 16 '26

Fool me once shame i6n you, fool me twice... Something something yada yada yada 🤣

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u/spazzvogel Sep 14 '26

I’m so trying to figure out how to bypass those fucks, mainly for the personal reasons of them fucking over BGP and the good they used to do. Also for Shoreline, they need to lose control of that shit yesterday.

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u/solojones1138 Sep 14 '26

Yep it is a horrible monopoly that affects everyone in the music industry.

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u/Enaliss Sep 14 '26

Somehow I just don't think Ed sherran would be that affected

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u/AdministrativeDelay2 Sep 14 '26

Ed Sheeran is in the top 5 biggest global touring artists. He has more power than the promoter or the venues.

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u/puke_lust Sep 15 '26

Sounds like some inception is in order

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/Shum_Where Sep 14 '26

He meant venues being blackballed by live nation from ever having performers again. Ticketmaster can't control the talent but do they have a stranglehold of where they can perform.

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/EmpatheticSocialist Sep 14 '26

You work in the industry and don't know that Ticketmaster very routinely throws its weight around exactly like this? Are you just bad at your job?

2

u/LyingForTruth Sep 14 '26

Yet another reason to hate Ed Sheeran then?

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u/LiveLifeLikeCre Sep 14 '26

Yet the live Nation isn't the one back balling here. It's literally venues that don't want anti Israel talk.Did you read the comment you are replying to?

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u/PokeTraderAngel Sep 14 '26

It is live nation. Venues don’t have the organization to block something like this together. Live nation is the one doing the black balling and blaming the venues.

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u/never-fiftyone Sep 14 '26

Yet the live Nation isn't the one back balling here.

We don't actually know that. The point being made by the comment you're replying to is that Live Nation has the ability to coerce venues into toeing the line without having to stick their own necks out simply by telling them in private they (Live Nation) will no longer use them (the venues) for events. It wouldn't be the first time Live Nation let venues take the heat for something Live Nation decided internally.

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u/thisguyfightsyourmom Sep 14 '26

That’s just a Wednesday at the live nation corporate office. They will do this until the company is dissolved. It’s the product of yet another government approved monopoly in good old capitalist America. Absolute power will continue to corrupt.

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u/Plenty_Past2333 Sep 14 '26

Nor will it be the last time

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '26

[deleted]

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u/Witty_Construction64 Sep 14 '26

Or people who have functioning eyes and brains apparently

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u/R_V_Z Sep 14 '26

Private companies don't ever support "100% Free Speech". If I'm a venue owner and the KKK wants to do a showing of Birth of a Nation I'm going to tell them to fuck off.

The real issue here is a single entity (Live Nation) having too much influence over venues to the point where they can effectively ban an artist from all major venues.

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u/wllwhtvrnvm Sep 14 '26

That's not how free speech works.

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u/Chazzybobo Sep 14 '26

The venues host shows promoted by promoters. Any guess who the biggest promoter is?

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u/tiy24 Sep 14 '26

Live nation literally directs the venues on who they can and cannot have perform if they don’t want live nation to send their artists (almost all of them) somewhere else on tour.

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u/Imthewienerdog Sep 14 '26

Yes they are?

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u/SwordfishOk504 Sep 14 '26

Look. Fuck Live Nation but again, This wasn't live nation. It was individual venues.