House music before a concert is almost always background noise, chosen simply to pass the time while technicians check connections and tape setlists to the stage floor. On Wednesday, September 16, Hayley Williams found a much sharper purpose for that downtime ahead of her solo performance at Forest Hills Stadium in New York. While fans waited for The Hayley Williams Show to begin, the arena speakers carried a run of songs by musicians who had all recently walked away from Ed Sheeran's stadium circuit.
Williams placed Macklemore at the center of the list, cueing up both Can't Hold Us and Thrift Shop. Surrounding those tracks were selections from the other performers who withdrew from Sheeran's ongoing Loop tour in solidarity. Fans heard Mama Said by Lukas Graham, For Cryin' Out Loud by Finneas, The Lane by Aaron Rowe, and Aurora II by Irish outfit Beoga. Every one of those acts had previously been booked to share stages with Sheeran before deciding to abandon the dates.
The trouble on Sheeran's tour began during a stop at Gillette Stadium, where Macklemore used his time on stage to deliver a speech declaring free Palestine. The reaction was immediate. Figures including Pink called for his dismissal, alongside groups like the Israeli American Council. Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft voiced his own anger soon after, explaining that he found the rapper's remarks deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community. That response led directly to Macklemore being pulled from the tour. In response, Macklemore gave away his entire one million dollar earnings from the run to Palestinians, while Kraft matched the move by pledging two million dollars toward humanitarian aid in the region.
The rest of the tour bill chose not to carry on as if nothing had happened. Sheeran's entire roster of opening acts, as well as his own backing band, walked away from the tour and issued statements standing by Macklemore. Other performers who had recently supported Sheeran also joined the chorus. Folk group BIIRD declared that they stood unequivocally behind every word Macklemore said. Singer Myles Smith spoke out on the humanitarian crisis, noting that what Palestinians are enduring is devastating and impossible to look away from, adding that no child, family, or innocent person should live under bombing, displacement, hunger, grief, or fear.
The departures left Sheeran stranded with empty support slots and facing intense scrutiny across the music world. When Sheeran eventually addressed the controversy, he claimed he was not complicit, stating that he was appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine and describing the pain and suffering on both sides as a tragedy. The explanation did little to stem the backlash. In the days following the comment, Sheeran lost over 200,000 Instagram followers, while Macklemore gained more than 1.6 million. Prominent peers quickly took sides. Roger Waters praised Macklemore for doing the right thing while brushing Sheeran aside, and Massive Attack weighed in to argue that neutrality in the face of the slaughter of more than 20,000 children can never be neutrality.
Williams had already signaled her thoughts earlier in the week. Before programming the New York playlist, she shared a satirical post mocking the sterile language of corporate crisis PR. In that message, she ridiculed statements that claim to keep dialogue open by saying nothing at all, sarcastically writing from the perspective of an entertainer who must avoid taking stands in order to protect shareholders and investors. Playing those departed artists over the stadium speakers gave that parody teeth, turning a routine intermission into an unmistakable public alignment.
